Homemade Laundry Detergent

Original Recipe found online

I have looked at so many different places not sure where I found this the first or who made it but thank you!

1 bar Fels-Naptha soap ($1 per bar)

1 cup Arm and Hammer Washing Soda ($3.00? for 55 oz)

1 cup 20 Mule Team Borax ($ 3.38 for 76 oz)

All of these things can be found at Wal-Mart or any store like it in the laundry isle and beside the soap each box will do several batches of soap

The recipe says to grate up the soap as small as possible (We used food processor but you can use a cheese grater) then stir in the other two ingredients and use 1-2 tablespoons per load.

We have been using this soap for about a year now with no problems it cleans the clothes really well and does not leave any scent. I have also read online that since it does not make a lot of suds it is ok for HE washers (not a professional so could not say for sure, but it has not messed up ours) 

I also put about ¼ cup of vinegar in the fabric softer dispenser of my washer to soften and deodorize clothes. 

Today mom and I made some more of this detergent up and decided to tweak it a bit so here is what we used.

 

6 cups Arm & hammer Washing Soda  

6 cups 20 mule team Borax

1 bar Zote pink

6 bar Fels-Naptha soap

¾ ml Tea tree oil in ½ of batch

Lotus blossom and vanilla fragrance oil in ½ of batch

6 cups Epsom salt

Measuring cup

Knife

Food processor 

 

What we did

1. cut up bars of soap so that they will fit into food processor 
2. Put in 1 bar of Fels-Naptha soap and 1/6 bar of Zote. turn on processor and grate until all the pieces are small
3. add in washing soda and borax and mix until well blended (he had to do one batch at a time because that is what would fit into my processor)
4. I also added ¼ ml of tea tree oil to each of the first 3 batches. 
5. After all 3 batches were made we put in 3 cups of Epsom salt and mixed in really well.

The 2^nd half of the soap we did not put in tea tree oil but added 9 drops of vanilla and 21 drops of lotus blossom

      After mixing everything in it still did not have a very good scent of the vanilla and lotus blossom so I took 4 cups of detergent out and added in 14 more drops of lotus blossom and 9 more drops of the vanilla

I hope that this is not to confusing we have decided to just add the scent drops after we fill up our containers so we could add what scent we like and how much we want.  

I also will not be using the vinegar this time because we added in Epsom salt. We have not used our tweaked recipe yet but I will share a review post when we have used it a while.   

What each ingredient does for the soap

Washing soda is a detergent booster

Borax is also a detergent booster, it fights stains, softens hard water, and gets rid of any odor. 

Zote brightens clothes,

Fels-Naptha is a stain fighter

Epsom salt is a fabric softener.  

If you try out our recipe or have you own tell us about it in the comments below.

 

-Becca & Debra

A soapers review...

After being able to use both batches of our soap for about a week now I can say that I love it! It turned out fantastic.

The first batch (see here) is a beautiful yellow color and is tea tree and vitamin E oil.  This batch we used cold process and had to let it sit in a closet for 3 weeks (boy was that a long hard wait) the soap turned out so good it is hard and has lots of creamy lather. It also cleans really well and rinses off clean (it does not leave any soapy residue like some soaps can).  

The second batch (see here) is a very natural looking brown color the lilac and lotus blossom gives it a very soft sent that is very soothing.  This bar we let cure for 1 week it is a little softer than the first batch but hopefully the longer it sits the harder it will be. This one also produced a very rich lather and rinses clean.  I have also enjoyed using the oatmeal honey almond soap it is a very good exfoliating bar. I do think that we will have to grind up our oatmeal a little bit more next time the pieces are kind of big.

I have also tried to use it as hand soap and at first it dried out my hands when I used it too often but now that I have used this soap exclusively for a couple of weeks I don’t notice any dry skin.   

I still don’t know if hot process or cold process is better some things that I noticed about each, cold process looks smoother like a bar of soap from the store looks and our hot process looked rawer, not perfectly smooth it had bumps and dips (this could just be our soap though?) The Hot process soap got done a whole 2 weeks faster than the cold process although not quiet as hard (yet).

I also learned that saponification is the chemical reaction that happens between the lye and the oils that turns the oils into soap. (whoohoo)

Anyway I am by no means an expert at soap making but I do know that it is fun and if you are looking for a more natural soap then this could be your solution.

First hot process homemade goats milk soap with recipe

Our first batch of cold process soap (see here) still has about 3 or 4 more days before it is ready but Mom and I could not wait to try out hot process soap so today we got all of our stuff together and spent the morning making another batch of soap.  With hot process we are going to be able to use the soap alot sooner.

What you will need:

Crockpot

Bowls, spoon, spatula, wisk

Good digital scale

Stick mixer

Mold (we used a can food box from grocery store it was 8.25x12 inches divided in half with another piece of cardboard covered in plastic wrap)

Plastic garbage bag (cut into single layer to cover the box to protect from oils)

fragrance oil or essential oils (we used  Something Fabulous brand from Hobby Lobby)

Oils we used

3.2 oz sweet almond oil         10%

9.6 oz coconut oil                   30%

6.4 oz sunflower oil                20%

11.2 oz olive oil                      35%

1.6 oz stearic acid                   5%

You can use whatever oils that you like just make sure to run through a lye calculator (this is the one that we used) to verify how much lye/water to use

12.16 oz water

4.569 oz lye

4 scoops powdered goat’s milk

*Our goat’s milk came with a scoop if not use 8 tablespoons

*also when making soap with milk it will be darker in color

Extras

Fragrance oils

            Japanese louts blossom

            Lilac

            Honey almond

Honey

Oatmeal

*This recipe uses 2 lbs of oil, if you want to make more or less just plug the % into the lye calculator to get the correct amounts*

Directions:

If you have any solid oils turn Crockpot on low add in oils and stir make sure all oils are melted then turn off

Go outside and add lye to water stir until clear

*be careful with this step lye is very dangerous and will burn if it touches you skin use protective gear

*if you get lye on you, you can use vinegar to stop the burning.

* be sure to always pour lye into water not the other way around.

Pour lye water into oil
Add in stearic acid and goat milk powder

Stir with spoon or Wisk until everything is incorporated then use stick mixer until your batter is at trace (i did not time this but about 20 minuts)

trace

Set Crockpot to low and put lid on it stir occasionally to keep batter cooking even 

Our Crockpot cooked really hot and ended up separating the batter so next time we will try to cook it on warm (if this happens just turn down and keep stirring until back together)

Our booboo

When done batter will look like waxy mashed potatoes test with “zap test” (take a little and put it to your tongue if there is any sting it is not done)  to make sure the saponification process is complete. (This took 1 hour even with the mess up)

 Transfer batter into another bowl and stir for a few minutes to let soap cool add in extra’s

Put in molds and cover let sit for 12 hours then cut into bars

This time we halved the batter, in 1^st half we used

¼ oz of Japanese lotus blossom fragrance oil

¼ oz of lilac fragrance oil

The other half we used

¼ oz of honey almond fragrance oil

1 tablespoon of honey

 ¼ cup of oatmeal that we chopped up in a processor

            With this batch we got 9 bars of lotus blossom and lilac and 9 bars of honey almond  (2.75x2 inches)

Add in any fragrance you like at no more than 1oz of fragrance for 2 lbs of soap

Add dry items at no more then ½ cup for 2 lbs

Soap will be ready to use once it hardens.


Would you try making your own soap?

-Debra and Becca

Could we be Soapers?

 

     For a while now my mom and I have wanted to try our luck at making our own bath soap.  We have talked about how much fun it would be, and how we could make it look and smell exactly how we want it to.  Plus do you know how much money we could save?  There was one thing stopping us though, I think it was the shear amount of information their is out there on the subject. Do we use cold or hot process? Is their a right combination of fats that we should be using?  What is saponification anyway?


     Fast forward a few months in April I took a trip to visit my husband's family in Idaho and while there I bought some homemade goats milk soap. We fell in love with it, so rich and creamy and it smelled heavenly plus after using it I did not have to use lotion anymore.  I mean how great is that?  That gave us the kick in the butt we needed to get this soap making thing on the roll.  So again we began scouring Pintrest and You Tube for an easy goat's milk soap recipe. Then we finally found this You Tube video that made the process look perfectly doable for two newbie Soapers.


     We have found our recipe!  It was a first step, a step that threw us into high gear. We got all of our ingredients and tools together, just waiting for us to both have a morning free so that we could get this soap making show on the road.


     We waited for a morning when she was not to busy and both of my kids were gone and we watched the video one more time to check our recipe. We gathered all of our stuff and went outside and started mixing and measuring and pouring. Do you know what? It seemed to work, everything the video said would happen did and we got our soap mixed and poured into our mold and it hardened like it should. Now we have to just wait 3 weeks to see how our soap turns out.

Have any of you tried to make your own soap? What was your experience like for you?

Becca