Tales from the Wash Line

So I mentioned I'm hanging all my laundry on the line these days, and I'm working on a rainwater capture system to be able to wash some clothes with free water. I figured why not make my own laundry detergent while I'm at it...

Quick hop onto Google for a recipe... there are a bunch of 'em! I can hardly believe my luck at finding several recipes, for both powder and liquid laundry soap, on the Recipezaar website. This site is very helpful as there are lots of reviews. I can see who changed what ingredients, and how happy most people are with liquid vs powder.

It seems most recipes use the same base ingredients. I'm planning to use the most basic (read: least expensive) recipe and work from there.

Here's the first recipe I'm going to use (this one came from tipnut.com):


Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap

2 gallons hot water
1 bar soap, grated
2 C baking soda

Heat grated soap over low heat until melted. Pour melted soap into a large (5 gallon) bucket. Stir until well blended. Add baking soda and stir until dissolved.

Use 1/2 cup to 1 cup per load of clothing.



It seems Fels Naptha soap is the most favored soap ingredient. However, I have about 8 bars of Dove soap that I got free in a coupon/cash back double-play, so I think I'll try one of those first.

Most recipes call for washing soda, which is a completely different thing from baking soda. But baking soda is cheap and on-hand, so I'm going to go for it. My costs for this recipe is under $1, so not much to lose if I'm not pleased with the results. Sure beats paying $2.50 a bottle or more.

I'm pretty picky about my detergents, so it's not going to be easy to win me over. I won't miss the perfumy stuff, because I use unscented detergents most of the time. But I do want the clothes to look and smell clean.

Washday is Saturday. I'll let ya know...