Karen Pugh writes:
I whipped up a batch of your home-made liquid laundry soap awhile ago, and it doesn’t work very well!! It didn’t gel, it doesn’t suds up very much, and my husband isn’t very impressed with his un-white whites! Have you had any of these problems?
Queen of Green, Lindsay Coulter, responds:
The foundation recipe is:
- 50% soap (called soap flakes, soap granules or you can grate bar soap)
- 25% Borax
- 25% washing soda
Boil a pot of water on the stove and add soap flakes (1 cup). Boil them until they’re diluted. Add this soap mixture to about a 7 L pail with ½ cup washing soda and ½ cup Borax. Add 20 drops of an essential oil. The mixture will partially gelatinize once cooled. This makes a huge batch so you may want to cut the whole thing in half.
Purpose of ingredients:
- Borax- kills germs and whitens
- Washing Soda- cuts grease and softens water
- Soap Flakes (granules or bar soap)- forces out dirt
Common problems:
- Adding soap dry to pail of water (you need to dilute it in the boiling water first).
- Not boiling it enough. You don’t want to see any granules.
- Your water hardness may have something to do with it. If you have hard water add more washing soda.
Whites not white enough?
- Make sure you wash like colors together.
- I add ½ cup of baking soda to my white loads and wash in warm
- Buy oxygen bleach or eco-bleach (which is really hydrogen peroxide)
As for suds, you won’t see much because this mixture is devoid of chemicals. Conventional stuff has chemicals that make the suds so you and I think it’s getting clean. Kind of like sodium lauryl sulfate in your shampoo and toothpaste. The new laundry soaps for HE machines have less suds actually because it’s not necessary.
Hope that helps!
