Making Laundry Soap

It occurred to me the other day that I have talked about making soap before, and given laundry soap recipes, but I never showed you how I make it!

I (slightly) changed my recipe about a month ago and thought this would be a great opportunity to show you what I do differently now. You can see my old laundry soap recipe in this post here. You can see how I make my own bar soap in this series of posts here.

What I decided to do is to increase the concentration levels of the soap. Kind of like what you see happening to the laundry detergent you can purchase in the stores. The bottles are getting smaller and the liquid is more concentrated. Of course, the idea is that you use less. If you find that you don't use less, then go back to the first link posted above and use that recipe. (It will be cheaper for you.) For people who like the highly concentrated liquid formula, today's recipe is for you.

Super Concentrated Laundry Soap
2 bars of soap
3 cups of Washing Soda
3 cups of Borax

Regardless of which recipe you want to use, this post is about how I make up the liquid soap. Here are the ingredients you need.

Just for the record, the bottle is empty. This is the bottle I am using to store the laundry soap. This bottle is about 4 years old and I continually reuse it. I really like the thick plastic bottles used to hold commercial laundry detergent. Ask your friends to save their empty bottles for you and soon you will have plenty! 

I start by heating some water in my soap making pot. The amount of water isn't important, add enough to dissolve the soap and powdered ingredients. The reason you heat the water is, hot water will help dissolve the bar soap quickly. I use an old vegetable peeler (now saved just for soap making) to cut thin slices.

Here is what they look like when I finished cutting them and drop them into the hot water. 

It isn't necessary to heat the water or cut the bar up if you don't want to. Instead, you can pour some water into a pot, drop the bar in it and let it soak overnight. The next morning, the soap should be soft enough to work with. (You may need to add some boiling water to get it to completely dissolve.)

Next, pour in the washing soda and borax. I usually add about 1 cup at a time and then stir until it is dissolved.  

When you have added all the ingredients, pour the concentrate into your detergent bottle.

Then, add additional water to fill the bottle.

Shake a bit and store.

If the liquid is still hot, I will go back and shake the bottle a few times until everything cools off. Shaking as it cools can help ensure the ingredients don't separate.

And there you have it! Your own homemade liquid laundry soap!