spamtrap1888 wrote:
> On May 17, 3:18 pm, George Leppla > wrote:
>> On 5/17/2012 5:04 PM, Kalmia wrote:
>>
>>> On May 17, 3:04 pm, Doug > wrote:
>>
>>>> I recall someone posted such a recipe around a year ago.
>>
>>> look for
>>> 'OT making laundry soap' by George L. He estimated 4 cents per
>>> load.
>>
>> We've been doing this now for over a year and it works really well.
>> We are going to try adding powdered Oxy-clean to the detergent in
>> stead of the color-safe bleach and give that a try. It is very cheap
>> ($11 for enough to do 190 loads)
>>
>> Here is the detergent recipe.. from January 2011:
>>
>> The recent discussion about making your own laundry soap/detergent
>> was interesting to me so I gave it a try. I decided to do a dry
>> powder instead of a liquid because of storage space, ease of use,
>> etc.
>>
>> I looked around the Intergoogle and found plenty of recipes and this
>> is what I came up with:
>>
>> 2 bars Fels-naptha soap
>> 2 cups 20 Mule Team Borax
>> 2 cups of Washing Soda (Arm & Hammer)
>>
>> Grate the bars of soap into a fine powder. We used an old SaladMaster
>> hand processor. That should give you about 4 cups.
>>
>> Mix the shredded soap, washing soda and Borax together. We ran
>> batches through a food processor to grind the soap further and blend
>> everything really well.
>>
>> We washed one load so far and neither of us can tell the difference
>> between this and the liquid detergent we have been using... but maybe
>> there is a cumulative effect that we can't see yet. Since we will
>> continue to use bleach in the whites and color-safe bleach in the
>> colored clothes, there might not be much difference.
>>
>> Cost..... Bar soap is $1 each. The box of Borax was $4 and the box of
>> washing soda was $3. I figure the cost per load will probably be
>> around 4 cents (approximately 2 to 3 tablespoons per load) The cost
>> per load for the liquid detergent we were using was about 17 to 20
>> cents a load.
>>
>> With only two of us in the house, we really don't do a lot of
>> laundry so in the grand scheme of things, the monetary savings
>> aren't all that important. I am somewhat of a do-it-yourselfer and I
>> just got curious about this and decided to give it a try. Call it a
>> hobby... but if I had a bunch of kids, this would be a viable
>> alternative.
>
> Congratulations. You are now laundering like they did before Tide came
> out, 67 years ago. Can I interest you in an old Maytag with a mangle?
> The hillbillies at the other end of the block have one on their porch,
> believe it or not.

We had a old wringer washer when I was born. I will be 53 next month. My
mom flat out refused to use an electric or gas washer because she didn't
think they would get the clothes clean. My dad finally just went out and
bought one. There was much kicking and screaming from her about the whole
thing. But once she used it, she never went back. I also remember using
the Duz laundry soap that came in big tablets.