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...And boy does it work. My wife found a recipe online about the same time the post here made it to the forum a couple months ago. We mixed some up and the clothes came out cleaner, smelled better and the stuff seems to last forever.
We mixed up a small batch; 1 cup of Borax, 1 cup of Arm & Hammer Pure Washing Soda and a bar of Ivory. A food processor comes in really handy with chopping up the bar soap. Cut it in thin pieces or you clog up the processor. :wink: There are some other recipes online that use these same, and some extra ingredients to foo-foo it up a bit, but I'm not sure they would be necessary, though I'm going to try it at some point.
Anyway, it's safe for our HE washing machine and we use 2 Tablespoons per load. 3 if it's a bigger, dirtier load. We have a large family as many of you know and those "few cups" of detergent lasted us a solid three weeks and cost about a dollar to make.
The nice part? My 16 year old try to pull the "we're out of laundry soap" bit (which includes not telling anyone we're out of it in the first place) when I asked for some towels to get washed. I said no problem and spent about 5 minutes whipping up a double batch of the stuff and said "Here you go!" I really enjoyed the ability to be out of something, reach under the cupboard and pull out what I needed to make more and know that I just saved a ton of money by not having to drive to the store and spend $15 or $20 bucks on commercial detergent.
So for those that have thought about it, but not quite crossed the line...go for it. It's simple, it's cheap and you'll be happy with the results! I promise.
We mixed up a small batch; 1 cup of Borax, 1 cup of Arm & Hammer Pure Washing Soda and a bar of Ivory. A food processor comes in really handy with chopping up the bar soap. Cut it in thin pieces or you clog up the processor. :wink: There are some other recipes online that use these same, and some extra ingredients to foo-foo it up a bit, but I'm not sure they would be necessary, though I'm going to try it at some point.
Anyway, it's safe for our HE washing machine and we use 2 Tablespoons per load. 3 if it's a bigger, dirtier load. We have a large family as many of you know and those "few cups" of detergent lasted us a solid three weeks and cost about a dollar to make.
The nice part? My 16 year old try to pull the "we're out of laundry soap" bit (which includes not telling anyone we're out of it in the first place) when I asked for some towels to get washed. I said no problem and spent about 5 minutes whipping up a double batch of the stuff and said "Here you go!" I really enjoyed the ability to be out of something, reach under the cupboard and pull out what I needed to make more and know that I just saved a ton of money by not having to drive to the store and spend $15 or $20 bucks on commercial detergent.
So for those that have thought about it, but not quite crossed the line...go for it. It's simple, it's cheap and you'll be happy with the results! I promise.