Monday, August 4, 2008

Homemade Laundry Soap


So what is this mysterious pink stuff? Both guesses, while quite good ones, were WRONG! ;-)

To save some money I tried my hand at making Homemade Laundry Soap. The Pink stuff is a Laundry soap bar found at Wal-M*art in the laundry section. It is called ZOTE. It is a huge bar of pink soap. I took it and grated it with a cheese grater and it looked like this:

The night that I grated it; the little chilren' were soundly asleep in bed. It just so happened that we had Taco Rice that night. When Bean woke up the next morning she came bursting into my room and said,

"MOMMY, MOMMY! You left the cheese out last night, and didn't put it back in the refrigerator and it turned PINK!!! You shouldn't of left it out!!!"

I explained to the girls what it was. Then Tiny Boy obviously thought it was something good to eat; otherwise he wouldn't snatched some and stuck it in his mouth. You should of seen his face as he discovered that it wasn't pink candy, LOL!

A few days later, I cooked up a batch of the Soap. If you would like to try your hand at making the soap here is the recipe that I used:

1 Bar of ZOTE soap grated


1/2 Cup of Borax


1 Cup of Arm and Hammer *WASHING* Soda (not baking soda, but *WASHING SODA* I found a box of it at Pub*lix in the laundry section. Wal-M*art didn't have it. Shocker huh?

Boil 4 Cups of water on the stove, and add in the grated ZOTE. Do a little at a time; otherwise it will clump together in one big wad. You may have to add a little more water as you cook it. It took me about 30 minutes to cook it down.

Dump the melted watery soap in a five gallon bucket. Put in Washing Soda and Borax. Stir around. Then add Five Gallons of Hot Tap Water. Stir really well. Cover with a lid, and let it set for 24 hours.

And Wallah! You have Laundry Soap!! The consistency is *not* like normal liquid laundry soap; but it works really well! I like it better than the cheap stuff that I normally buy. It is estimated that it costs $0.01 a load to wash with this soap.

Here is a picture of what it looked like when I opened it up.


And here are the little people stirring the brew. :)

I have washed about five loads of laundry with this stuff. It comes out clean, and smelling really nice. Not bad for trying to save some $$$ huh? You use 1 Cup per load of laundry.

Now for the winner. Miss Bean drew Persuaded out of the hat! Congratulations!!! I'll be contacting you for your mailing address. :)

Thanks for playing ladies! That was fun. :)

7 comments:

Paula said...

How very industrious of you! :) I have a front-loader now, and I'm afraid to experiment with it.

Have a wonderful week! :)

A Romantic Porch said...

OKay you clever thing you!!! I may just have to try this...making the soap, not the guessing game! lol I've been hanging out our clothes, so maybe I should make soap too...I just don't want to have to make lye soap. My mom used to do that. xo rachel

A Romantic Porch said...

Hey, would you mind to email me and tell me how much the initial start up to make the recipe is? Unless that is too personal of a question, I understand. Thank you so much! Rachel
rachelgoing@gmail.com

Jen said...

I love the new look of you page:) And with the soap, very creative:)

Diane Shiffer said...

wow! i won?? really?? well that is very cool indeedy:D

you don't have to mail me any money though, my dear... i'll use your laundry soap recipe and buy myself a candy bar with the money i've saved;)

btw, that pic of the kids peering into the bucket is sooo cute. your little guy has the nicest hair!

MrsMomma said...

I've been making mine since March of this year. I'm happy to say that I'm still on my 1st box of Borax and Washing soda! So it's looking like the most expensive thing (which isn't that expensive) is the soap. :) I'm loving not having to shell out that monthly 13+ dollars on laundry detergent!

Unknown said...

After seeing the "cheese" on your counter, I went home and googled homemade laundry detergent recipes and made some of my own... I made the powder kind rather than the liquid... I'm not used to seeing non-sudsy water when I'm washing clothes, but my towels feel SOOO soft! That's the only thing I did differently, so that's gotta be it. Let me know if you find that's a difference.

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