Do It Yourself Laundry Soap

I'll admit, doing laundry is not one of those chores that gets me overly excited. Maybe if I had a laundry room like one of these I'd reconsider that...(oh someday, someday!)

{Image source unknown}

{Image source unknown}

{Hampton Design}

But when an opportunity arises that not only makes doing laundry cheaper but also more luxurious, I'll gladly jump on the bandwagon! I recently discovered the Duggar recipe for making your own laundry soap. It's been around for a while and I'm sure many of you are leagues ahead of me, but you're welcome to come along for the ride anyways.

Supposedly, their laundry soap recipe not only works just as good as the leading brands, it only costs around $2 for a 40-load (approx.) recipe. I love finding ways to save money so I had to try this out for myself. They have directions for a liquid laundry soap recipe, but I live in a small apartment and don't really have anywhere to store 5-gallon buckets so I opted for the powdered recipe instead.

Powdered Laundry Detergent- Top load machine

1 Fels-Naptha soap bar (I replaced the Fels-Naptha bar for Ivory soap because 1. it's cheaper per bar 2. it doesn't give off quite as strong of a scent as Fels-Naptha does and 3. it's white)
1 Cup Washing Soda
½ Cup Borax

-Grate soap or break into pieces and process in a food processor until powdered. Mix all ingredients. For light load, use 1 Tablespoon. For heavy or heavily soiled load, use 2 Tablespoons. Yields: 3 Cups detergent. (Approx. 40 loads)

First, I gathered the supplies needed. I've been making the powered laundry soap recipe (with Fels-Naptha) for a month now and had the Borax and Washing Soda already. I don't remember the exact cost for those, but the recipe ran at around $1.89 for 40 loads which was great! Today, I replaced the $1.25 per Fels-Naptha bar for a 10-pack of Ivory soap that came in at $4.49 (or 45 cents per bar!). I found all of the ingredients in the landry soap aisle. I also nabbed this 1 gallon apothecary jar for $12.79 from my local grocery store. If yours doesn't carry these, I believe I've seen some for cheap at Michaels, Ben Franklin, and Cost Plus World Market.

I grated the Ivory soap with a cheese grater and then mixed all the ingredients in a bowl to make sure they were evenly distributed before adding them to my jar.

I don't know what it is about these glass jars, but they make me really happy and I feel like royalty while doing laundry (err... I guess royalty would have maids?). And I love how it looks sitting next to my freshly painted laundry basket!

This 1 gallon jar holds 5 batches, or enough powdered soap to do approximately 200 loads of laundry! And the best part? This new 40-load recipe cost me only $1.09! Now that is a money saver!