On May 17, 5:18*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.

I'm into the frugality hobby as well, but using *soap* instead of
detergent is "pound foolish" because the soap residue on clothes
causes the clothes to grab more dirt. It's like driving an old, non-
fuel efficient car that "nickel and dimes you" with repair costs. The
most frugal method is using a high efficiency front loader with store
brand detergent, which is optimized with the same enzymes as the name
brands. If your water is hard, adding a *little* borax and/or washing
soda is smart, but soap is drastically inferior to detergent for
washing clothes.

Oxygen bleach is easier on your clothes than chlorine bleach, and
environmentally more responsible, but it's way more expensive if you
use it in concentrations necessary for disinfection or whitening.
>
> George L

--Bryan