Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Highly Concentrated Homemade Laundry Detergent

I'm so excited to share with you a new kind of homemade laundry detergent.  I've been making my laundry detergent for years now and a little over a year ago I shared my recipe with my readers (check it out here).  I recently ran across a recipe for a highly concentrated version of this detergent and I absolutely LOVE it!

It has the same ingredients as the original version except you double the quantities.

2 bars of Fels Naptha
1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
6 cups of water (+ a little more as needed)

The first thing you want to do is grate your soap.  I always do this ahead of time and keep it in ziploc bags or a jar.  That way when I need to whip up some soap I have everything ready.  Put 6 cups of water in a large saucepan and and add the grated soap.  Heat on medium low heat until all the soap is melted.  This is the part that takes the longest because you don't want your water to boil, but you want to be sure that all the soap melts.  When your soap is melted you can add the borax and the washing soda.  Stir until it disolves.  Add your mixture to 4 - quart jars.  Let it sit over night.  In the morning your will have a hard layer of soap on top and a watery gel on bottom of each jar.

Now the fun part!!  Take a knife and cut through the hard layer.  Pour the mixture of one jar into a large bowl.  Add 1-3 tablespoons of hot water to the jar you just emptied and swish it around to get out any remaining soap and add that to the bowl as well.  Now your going to mix that up.  I actually used my Ninja Master Prep which is a high powered blender.  This worked well for me so you may want to use something similar rather than the bowl and mixer method.  As you are blending it, you will see that the consistency of it becomes fluffy and kind of looks like pudding.  When your reach that consistency you can add it back to the quart jar and do the same process with the rest.  With the extra water you add, you will end up with more than 4 quarts.  Mine made 4 quarts and 1 pint plus a little extra.  To use it, add 1 tablespoon to your laundry.  That's it.  Just think...1 quart jar will give 64 loads of laundry!  So 4 quarts + 1 pint = a very economical detergent!


2 comments:

  1. I really want to try this, but just half, and i don't have any mason jars, since you can only buy them by the dozen. Can this be done without them?

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    1. Definitely! Do you have any old mayonnaise jars are something like that? I would think that any kind of plastic container would work just as well too! Let me know how you like it. A full batch lasted me a super long time, so I'm sure a half batch would be great!

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