Took the Plunge, Made My Own Soap.

On my journey towards "cleaner" living (and if anyone knows me I still have a long way to go), I've decided to take a big step and make my own laundry detergent.  My motivation actually came from my good friend Sharon when she shared a recipe from the diyNatural website.  I won't post the whole recipe here since you can get a detailed instruction from the site.  Basically it only requires equal parts of three ingredients:  Soap (like Fels Naptha), Borax, Washing Soda.  Simple right?  

The making and mixing of it was fairly easy.  I used an old cheese grater and started shaving away.  No one told me that making my own soap was also a muscle toning workout.  After what I thought was an eternity and 20 questions from my 3 year old as to what I was doing with the cheese (yeah, she kept calling the soap cheese), I finally had it all grated.  I then added a cup each of the Borax and Washing Soda.  And in case anyone was wondering there is a difference between Washing Soda and Baking Soda (I actually had to research it because I didn't know the difference).  The Diaper Pin has a great article about the differences between Washing Soda and Baking Soda.    


I then began the recommended 5 minutes of mixing.  So I actually set my timer and began mixing.  Again with my 3 year old on the stool asking various questions about my "cheese", I mixed away.  However, it just wasn't combining like they showed on the site.  They had used a bar of Ivory soap, so don't know if the type of soap matters, but I just was not able to get a fine looking powder.  Well, and it doesn't help that the Fels Naptha is yellow and the Borax and Washing Soda are white.  Anyway, so I did some more reading and came across a post by naturalhealthezine.com on making your own laundry soap.  They recommended cutting the soap into chunks and put it through a food processor.  So that is what I did. 

After getting it all through my little machine, I finally had a decent "powder".  You can still see the Fels Naptha in it, but it all looks much more incorporated.  At the time I still had one load worth of Tiny Bubbles for my diapers, and I really wasn't "bold" enough to try it out on my diapers right away, so I used it on all the clothes that were piling up in my kitchen.  So far my clothes have turned out very nice with this soap.  I was concerned that it wouldn't work in cold water, but it seems to dissolve just fine.