Saturday, February 27, 2010

Making laundry soap?

I started trying to save money a while ago. I started visiting those sites that talk about being frugal. Some of the ideas are just gross or scary. I will NOT go without deodorant to save a buck. I WILL wash my hair every time I take a shower! Some suggestions are just gross. But I have learned some useful things. Like how to make my own laundry detergent. Z has psoriasis so could only use the expensive free and clear, hypoallergenic laundry detergent. As if that stuff isn't expensive enough they charge extra to leave stuff out! It was killing me. So I learned how to make my own. It is easy and cheap. I spend on average about a little more than $20 a YEAR to make detergent. I make a powder because the liquid is just a pain to make and maintain. The powder only takes about two minutes to make. I was making large batches at once but quickly learned that humidity is the enemy. I live in Florida and my laundry soap was getting clumpy. I didn't like it. So small batches but, like I said, only about two minutes to make. This stuff has no effect on anyone's skin and I have been using it in my high efficiency machine for a long time. BTW, high efficiency detergent simply has less of the sudsing agent in the soap. Since my soap doesn't sud I can use it my machine. I totally asked when we were buying the machine. I would have chosen a different machine if I had to buy special expensive soap for it. Here is the recipe:
1 cup borax
1 cup sodium carbonate
1/2 cup laundry booster

Mix and store in air tight container. Use 1 tablespoon per load. 2 if it is really dirty.

See....easy peasy! Borax can be found in the laundry aisle. It has a mule on the box. DO NOT mistake sodium carbonate for sodium BIcarbonate (baking soda). They are not the same thing!! Sodium carbonate can sometimes be found in the laundry aisle called Washing Soda. If your local store doesn't have that....go to the pool supplies. It is called Ph Plus there. Just make sure the container says 100% sodium carbonate. Laundry booster is something like Oxy Clean. Though I use the Sun brand because it has no scents in it. And besides...why does laundry soap need scent? We just use fabric softner to make it smell good anyway. LOL... You can also use vinegar in place of fabric softner. It does the same job but won't smell as great. I also use vinegar to clean my machine once a month. If you have a front loader, you are supposed to use a product called Afresh (?) to clean the machine. I use about a cup of vinegar. It does the same thing for a fraction of the cost!

1 comment:

Melissa said...

Ok so I know how to make laundry soap. I need to know a good cleaner for my dishwasher. I found a dishwasher cleaner, it's only $5 not bad, and I've tried vinegar, it didn't work. Any ideas?