Frugal Laundry: Make Your Own "Detergent"by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 24 Jan 2007 08:13 AM
I was about to head out to the laundry mat, when a dear friend I know off line, Miss Kitty, offered to let me to bring my dirty laundry over to her house. This is a case of bringing the mountain (Mount Washmore) to Mohammed (my very wise and frugal friend). Fortunately, she only lives the next town over, and I could actually walk to her house if I didn't have all of that laundry and my bulk warehouse container of detergent. Because of her generosity, not only did I not have to spend all of those quarters, but I got to slow down and enjoy a cup of sugar cookie tea. While doing my laundry, I noticed that she had a yellow bar of laundry soap at her laundry center. That starting me thinking about how instead of relying on my enormous store-bought detergent. Making your own laundry soap is actually pretty easy to do. You can use special bars of inexpensive laundry soap, or you can use any form of soap you have around. This is a good way to use up your stockpile of soap or to use up slivers of leftover soap. Here is a basic recipe that you can use to get started. Don't worry too much about exact measurements. The recipe is very forgiving, and you can always adjust the strength if you need to later. Shave or chop the equivalent of a normal (not economy) size bar of soap. Heat some water in a pan and add the soap, stirring until it is dissolved. Be careful not to actually boil the soap. In bucket that contains three gallons of water (use milk containers to measure, if needed), add the dissolved soap mixture. Add one cup of washing soda. Washing soda can be found in the detergent section of the grocery store and at some hardware stores. Use about a cup of your homemade soap to get a large load of clothes clean. You can use this soap with any temperature of water, but when using cold, let the washer fill before adding clothes (as you should do with any powdered soap). Related Articles: Frugal Conservation: Save that Soap HOFF: Real Uses for Dryer Lint Save Money on Home Heating: Install a Dryer Diverter Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantfrugal tags User Comments prairieseed (10) 04 Sep 2007 06:38 PMWe also add borax and water softener to our laundry detergent. It makes 5 gallons and lasts us 6 months. Our water is really hard, so we need the water softener to make the detergent work. Thankfully there is very little of it, as both are not great for the environment. Ours works out to .625% borax, and half that for the water softener. Commercial detergents can be up to 75% phosphates. No wonder the environment is suffering! Cool blog! Thanks for writing! Jean Community Tags detergent, how to, laundry, soap Discuss this article
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Okay, this is a really ironic blog for me to post today. You see, on Sunday, the day before inspections on out home that we are selling, all heck broke loose. Let's just say numerous things broke down, including our washing machine. 
