If you have been reading my TOS Homeschool Crew reviews, you know that recently I wrote a review for Virginia Soaps and Scents. They generously sent all of the great folks on the crew a packet of ingredients to make your own laundry soap. We loved it, but soon ran out. I had seen other people's recipes for homemade laundry soap, but had never tried it. So, today I did. I kind of combined a couple of the recipes, took pictures, and decided to invite you to come along on the Tinkel's new laundry soap making journey. Here are the pictures and the original Tinkel recipe - a patent is on the way!

1. You take a bar of soap and grate it. We are very blessed to have a friend who makes and sells soap. A couple of years ago she gave us some of her bad soap that came out discolored and was unsellable. We passed out most of it to the families that we work with in the low income housing area but had a few bars left over. So, we grated one of them. You can, however, use whatever soap that you choose.

2. You put the soap in a small pot, cover with water, and slowly melt it. I made the mistake of putting it on high and leaving it. Joshua called to me a few minutes later to tell me it was boiling over. I caught it before losing too much, but next time I will put it at a lower temperature and stir occasionally as I go.

3. I then poured the melted mixture into a large pot that we had. I would recommend a bucket if you have one handy. I added one cup of borax and one cup of baking soda. Some recipes suggest washing soda, but others say that the extra expense isn't needed - baking soda works fine.  I also added two gallons of water and stirred the whole mixture and let it stand for a few minutes.

4. I then cleaned out a couple of old liquid laundry soap containers that we had ready to throw away and poured my new laundry detergent into them. I plan on using 1/2 cup for regular loads or one cup for more soiled loads. The mixture should thicken into a gel after time. There may also be some hard pieces. Just give the container a good shake before measuring the soap. 

The first load came out great. We'll see how things work in time. Next up on our new money saving experiments - dishwasher detergent. We'll keep you posted!

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