Make your own laundry soap....

     In my last post I talked about the benefits of giving thrifting a try. Today, in another effort to save myself and my readers money, I'm talking about homemade laundry soap. I searched the internet for any recipes for homemade laundry soap I could find. Then I studied reviews on each until I'd found the recipe I wanted to use. I chose the Duggar Family recipe which you can find here.

     By combining three easy to find ingredients I was able to whip up a batch of laundry soap in about five minutes. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of Borax, 1 cup of Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda and one grated Fels Naptha soap bar. The hardest part was grating the soap, but BONUS I got an arm workout. These three products are all available at Walmart.

      Now, some of you may be wondering if it's really worth it to make your own laundry soap. Here's how I was convinced. Every two weeks I purchase a bottle of Gain liquid laundry detergent at $10.97 at Walmart. That adds up to roughly $286 a year for our family of three. One batch of homemade laundry detergent costs a little less than $2 which adds up to $52 a year. That was all the convincing I needed.

     The real question though is does this detergent work? How do the clothes smell? How clean are they? Well, I wouldn't be a diligent blogger if I didn't give this a thorough test so I did six loads of laundry today with the new detergent. The loads came out clean, smelling fresh (without any weird perfume smelly) and soft. We have found our new detergent. Also, as an added tip: I buy the generic Great Value Walmart brand fabric softener sheets and cut them in quarters. They do the same job and go four times further. Happy laundry day!