Homemade Laundry Soap

I have blogged about laundry soap before but since I am writing about zero waste this month and also I needed to make a batch of laundry soap again I thought I should bring it up on here again as well.

  This is something I have made for many, many years. I am sure over that time it has helped us save a pretty large chunk of money. We have also dealt with no plastic laundry bottles in that time. We simply have some cardboard boxes from time to time (and sometimes some small amounts of plastic wrapper from the soap- we didn't this month). 

• It is not hard to make and my kids enjoy helping me. 
• I make over 3 gallons of liquid laundry soap at a time so it lasts quite a while.
• It is cheap.
• It is pretty much scent free which is very important to me (that was helpful for me having less headaches).
• It still gets our clothes clean.
• It is pretty natural.
• I can make it with zero waste!!!

  I use:
1 bar of soap (pretty much any type)
4 cups of water in a pot.
1 cup washing soda
1/2 cup borax
3 gallons warm water in a big bucket

Shave the bar of soap into the pot of water and heat until melted on the stove. Then mix that in with the water in the bucket. Then add the washing soda and borax in and mix thoroughly. It is now ready to use. After sitting for a few hours it will probably get gelled. That is not a problem. Just use it like that.

We also avoid scents and waste by not using fabric softener or dryer sheets. We just don't use anything and it works fine. I try not to over dry my clothes as that creates a lot of static cling. I also do a lot of line drying which prevents static cling. I do still want to make wool dryer balls sometime however.

 Do you make your own laundry soap?