Homemade Laundry Detergent!

I am so excited to share this DIY laundry detergent. It turned out better then great! My sister in law sent me a picture about a month ago of a whole bunch of jugs of homemade detergent. If you've been on pinterest you've seen a tonne of different recipes. But if you're anything like me, you may have a bit of misfortune with recipes. I always know what I want to make or cook, but somehow I don't find the right recipe and need up with something random. That's why I lean more towards baking, and my husband tries to get me to cook just my "specialties" as he calls it, instead of trying new things. 

Anywho, I hit her up for the recipe after she said it did a good job cleaning. And it does!!

Here are your ingredients. These are what you need to have to make it. 

 

You can also purchase an essential oil, like I did, and add it to the soap to make your clean laundry have a nice scent. I chose jasmine, lavender, vanilla or anything that you think smells good. 

 

So here goes. 

Grate the bar of Fels-Naptha soap. And melt it into 4 cups of water in a pot. I used a whisk to melt the soap nicely into the water. Stir over medium heat until it's dissolved.  

 

I forgot to mention you will also need a 5 gallon bucket. Matt had one in the basement for me. 

So you fill the 5 gallon bucket half full of warm/hot tap water and then add 

1 cup of washing soda

1/2 cup of borax

and your soap mixture

Stir that till it's well dissolved and then fill the bucket up almost to the top with more water. 

Then let it sit over night. My sister in law told me it would be jello like in the morning and it really was. Now this is half strength so you would mix 50% detergent with 50% water and then put that in your wash. I decided the easiest way for me was to fill a mason jar half full and then top off with water and add my 5 drops or so of jasmine oil. I just shake up the mason jar each time before I put some into the wash. And I use approximately 1/3 of a cup each time. 

I filled a milk jug with the detergent but I left the majority of the detergent in the bucket and covered it with saran wrap then tinfoil. Its in the basement and when I run out I go down stairs and refill my supply upstairs.

Now It says to add your scent once the soap is cooled. Since I did mine at 10 pm it wasn't cooled down before I hit the hay. So I decided to add it in my mason jar.   

On exciting news in the Dudgeon house....MY PRINTER IS WORKING. Thanks to the hubby and youtube he was able to keep at least $80 in our pockets :) 

So I've been doing a lot of coupon printing!

Ellee has had an obsession with marshmallows so one afternoon I had her help me roast some over the stoves flame and make some smores.  

 

Oh and I should mention, it was 27 today and I woke up to snow :( not cool Spring...