Point of View

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Homemade Laundry Soap



I'll introduce myself later.  I'll explain how I,  who spent six years in graduate school, who planned to spend my days on a university campus teaching and researching, who loved the city, and a downtown kind of life, ended up living fifty miles from nowhere, gardening, canning, preserving, sweeping, mopping, polishing, laundering and otherwise being a huswife.  And later, I'll also explain how a huswife is different than a housewife.

But first, I want to get into the heart of the matter. Yesterday I tried a new recipe for homemade laundry detergent and it is a big success.  Here's the recipe:

1 Bar grated Zote soap
1 Cup Borax
1 Cup Baking Soda

Mix and store.  Use 1 TB per load, 2 TB for heavily soiled laundry.


That's it!  Very simple and cleans beautifully, laundry smells very fresh without being too perfumed.  It's adapted from a recipe on Tipnut.  The original recipe calls for either Fels Naptha or Zote.  I like Zote because a) it's what my little local grocery store had in stock, and b) the bright pink soap looks so pretty.  I also doubled the recipe, which originally called for 1 c grated soap and 1/2 c borax and soda.  The bar of Zote made 2 cups so I doubled the rest of the stuff.  And finally, I substituted baking soda for the original recipe's washing soda because a) both accomplish similar goals as to deodorizing, and baking soda is supposed to be gentler on clothes, and b) I had baking soda on hand.

A poster at Tipnut had calculated the cost of this soap at about a penny a load.  I think I paid a fraction more for my ingredients than they did, but not much.

No comments:

Post a Comment