Comments on: Laundry Help: Homemade Laundry Soap

By: Melissa

Melissa — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:33:48 +0000

The last time I made laundry soap, I tried a recipe for the powder. It did turn my white uniform shirts very dingy. I am going back to making the liquid one again. I can’t find the fels napth soap, but use a Sunlight bar. I also use a vinegar and water rinse and it seems to stop the build up in the machine. I just put half vinegar and half water into the rinse holder in my machine.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:22:49 +0000

Love this recipe! Thanks I was looking for one that used baking soda instead of washing soda! I’ll have to try this next time.

P.S. anyone try mixing washing soda with baking soda?

By: Debbie

Debbie — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 20:42:28 +0000

I LOVE baking soda, and am going to try this recipe today – I’m due to make a new batch of detergent!!! I’ll stick to my Fels Naptha soap with the baking soda –

Sidenote: I LOVE homemade detergent. I’ve been using the borax, washing soda, soap & water recipe. I did find that using the Fels Naptha did a better job with stains and overall cleaning than the “Ivory” type bar from my first batch. I also found that I had to use my hand blender in the bucket after stirring all of the ingredients together – this really made the gel smoother and easier to measure over a long period of time.

By: Yvonne

Yvonne — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:56:14 +0000

so wierd My batch with felsNaptha acted just like
Jills from 1/8 all floated to the top must be the cold?

By: Kimberly @ Raising Olives

Kimberly @ Raising Olives — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:18:13 +0000

Hi Cheryl,

I don’t use essential oils in our laundry soap, but have friends that do and they say it works fine, no spots on clothes etc.

I think that some health food stores carry essential oils. I would check on-line and maybe call around to some of your local shops.

Thanks for the tip about the Fels-naptha. We have poison ivy all through the woods in the back yard, so that will be helpful when warm weather rolls around again.

By: Cheryl

Cheryl — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:33:21 +0000

I am very interested in trying this due to trying to cut costs where ever I can. I am curious though, where can essential oil be purchased and since it’s oil, won’t it leave an oily residue or spots on the clothes? On a side note, Fels-naptha soap is very diffucult to find where I live but I do have a bar that I purchased years ago and I use it if I’ve come in contact with poison ivy. Just lather it up and apply to affected area and let dry. The poison ivy will be dried up in no time. Thanks for your great recipes and for helping me stay within my budget.

By: Kimberly @ Raising Olives

Kimberly @ Raising Olives — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:50:27 +0000

I love it when I find a nice scent. So glad that you like the recipe as much as we do.

Let me know how the Fels Naptha works. I’ve heard it’s better on stains, if you find that to be true I may have to give it a try.

By: Yvonne

Yvonne — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:27:57 +0000

I used caress bath bar it smells GREAT.
Also I have found that if you use the small side of the grater It all melts.
This time I bought a bar of felsNaptha gonna give it a try
LOVE This Recipe

By: Amys blah, blah, blogging

Amys blah, blah, blogging — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 03:59:53 +0000

Going to have to give that a whirl!

By: valerie

valerie — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:37:13 +0000

just a quick question……does your laundry bucket have a firm, air tight lid,or a loose fitting one?

By: Michelle

Michelle — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:54:18 +0000

I’ve never had a problem with any kind of buildup in my washer. Using the two different kinds of soap works just fine for me.

By: Jenn

Jenn — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:11:22 +0000

Thanks for sharing your experiences! DO you have experience with what I asked Kimberly below?

By: Jenn

Jenn — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:10:26 +0000

Thanks! Have you noticed build up in your washer (from using homemade on your clothes) causing a problem for your diapers even though you use a different detergent on them? This is something Charlie’s warns against(using different detergents for different things) so I wonder if anyone has experienced it?

By: Jenn

Jenn — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:08:13 +0000

I bet that is true for clothing and such but cloth diapering manufacturers actually say true soap should not be used to launder cloth diapers because of the residue it leaves. They recommend using only detergents. That is why I questioned the homemade stuff. Looks like I will have to stick with my Charlies’s Soap (although it is not really a soap -it was just named before the difference was a big deal) while I am in the diaper years.

By: Kimberly @ Raising Olives

Kimberly @ Raising Olives — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:24:30 +0000

I don’t use this soap on diapers. I’ve read that it will leave a build up.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:21:11 +0000

While I absolutely LOVE this laundry detergent for my everyday washing, I found that it did not do a very good job at either cloth diapers or farm chore clothes–both kinds of clothes ended up smelling very bad using the homemade soap. In the interest of fairness, we have really, really hard water. Someone with softer water might get different results; but for our family, I use the homemade soap on our regular clothes and save the store-bought soap for my diaper and work clothes loads.

By: Diana

Diana — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:07:09 +0000

I am also curious about this….I have been using the 1 cup washing soda, 1 cup borax , 1 bar fels naptha recipe for about a year, and am fairly pleased with it. I also use it on my cloth diapers, and have to regularly sun them or they eventually stink. I don’t think it is a build up issue though. Just general info…I remember reading somewhere that when making soap using a ‘true soap’ such as Ivory or Pure and Natural will give better results because of it’s formula, rather than a more modern blend with moisturizers etc. which may not do as good when needing to cut grease. Don’t remember where I came across that, but I stick with Fels Naptha, or Ivory, and have been pleased.

By: Jenn

Jenn — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:46:02 +0000

I am almost out of my Charlie’s bucket and am thinking of trying this recipe. I am wondering how it did on your diapers? I only question the bar of soap as I am wondering if it will leave residue (soap scum) on my diapers that will cause build-up stink over time. Have you noticed that being a problem? The new Dove commercials out say it doesn’t leave any residue so maybe that would work? I switched to Charlie’s specifically for my cloth diapers b/c it cleans SO well and doesn’t leave any residue. I would love to find something cheaper that works just as well.

By: Kimberly @ Raising Olives

Kimberly @ Raising Olives — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:28:54 +0000

Our current batch is acting like that. I’m not sure if it’s the cold weather or if we didn’t stir it up enough as it was cooling. Most of the time it’s gel-like, but not this time.

It still works all right. I’m just stirring it up before each use.

By: Jill

Jill — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:24:45 +0000

BTW, I used Dial soap, a white bar that looked exactly like the one you used. It’s called Dial White, antibacterial, deoderant soap.

By: Jill

Jill — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:20:02 +0000

Help Kimberly! I must have done something wrong because when I went to use the soap this morning (after making it yesterday) all the soap had separated from the water and risen to the top to form a skin about an inch thick! I stirred it up but it just broke into large chunks. Any thoughts?

By: Anne Steele

Anne Steele — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:01:09 +0000

We’ve been using the borax, washing soda, fels naptha recipe for about 6 months and it seems okay on our whites – but we don’t usually have a bunch of grime (as we are older with no small children to get dirty!) We DO have dogs and keep old quilts on the furniture to protect it and found that we sometimes need to add more of the soap, or make sure we don’t do a really full load (just the one blanket by itself) to get the doggy grime out. I, too, use essential oil for fragrance – I like lemongrass. Smells so clean!

By: Kimberly @ Raising Olives

Kimberly @ Raising Olives — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:24:39 +0000

I’ve heard borax is good on stains. Which is great for BOYS! I need to make some more today. We’ve had a stomach bug and have been doing lots of laundry.

By: Kimberly @ Raising Olives

Kimberly @ Raising Olives — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:21:27 +0000

I’m so glad you like this. I made my last batch with Ivory soap and am not sure if I didn’t melt the soap enough or if it’s the Ivory itself, but we were less than pleased with it’s washing ability and it left some white soap residue on our clothes. Everything else that we’ve used has worked wonderfully for us.

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 22:08:48 +0000

Hi Kimberly,

Just made our second batch today and we love it. The only difference is that I use 1 cup borax and 1 cup baking soda. I don’t know if it makes much difference since I haven’t tried it with only baking soda, but it has worked great so far.

Tim