Homemade Laundry Soap

I ran out of laundry soap last week and had bought most of the products I needed to make my own, then Friday before we left for the weekend, the rest of the items came from Alice.com, so first thing this morning, I made the soap so I could wash clothes! :)

Got the recipe HERE:

1 4 lb box Borax

1 4 lb box Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (or two 2lb. boxes) :)

1 4lb box Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (my box wasn't quite 4 lbs.)

3 bars of Fels-naptha soap

2 small containers of oxyclean or store brand oxyclean (not sure if what I got was considered small, but it was the smallest the store had!)

I shredded the Fels-naptha soap in my food processor. Wasn't sure if I had the nerve too...was afraid it would leave a soapy taste, but I figured the dishwasher would take care of that!! I'm sure it was MUCH quicker than grating it by hand!!

 And no, this isn't cheese!! ;)

Then I dumped everything else in a 5 gallon bucket and mixed it all together!! 

Yes, I even bought a cute jar to store it in! Go figure, I JUST threw out my big plastic barrels that pretzels come in, which would have been a perfect container!! :P Sometimes it DOES pay to hang on to stuff!!

The Oxy Clean containers had these little handy 1 T. scoops in them! So glad I didn't buy anything special!! :)

From the wash I did today, I was impressed! The clothes smelled good and got clean. One piece that had a stain (that I forgot to pre-treat) came out clean!! :) I guess time will tell. It cost me $20 for all the ingredients shown in the top pic and supposedly this should last for a good 6 months or more....can't beat that!!

I also made a half batch of homemade fabric softener...

3 cups of HOT water~

added 1 cup of Suave hair conditioner and mixed till the conditioner dissolved, then added 1 1/2 cups of white vinegar. You can double that for a bigger batch, but I am about out of conditioner, so I didn't make so much this time!

This is the first time I've ever tried homemade soaps, so I am still a little skeptical, but so far I like what I see and smell! :)