Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap

"I did it! I did it! I said that I would do it and indeed I did!"

Sorry, please pardon my over-excitement. I'm just glad to have finally run out of the store bought stuff thus I was "forced" to make my own! Why bother? For one, it's significantly less expensive! The Simple Dollar did a comparison and discovered that Tide With Bleach Alternative broke down to roughly .20 cents per load while this recipe rounded off at .02 cents per load. More importantly, for me, I like to know what goes into the products I use; especially when those products are up against my family's skin and potentially absorbed or breathed in by them all day.

I considered this to be simple. I did lots of research on how to do it. Originally I heard about it from a friend who heard about it on the Duggar family's website. Their recipe was a bit vague so I went online for some tutorials on youtube.com. YouTube did not disappoint. Though all of them have the same or very similar ingredients, the methods all vary a little. I specifically reviewed these three and adapted them al:
The Guy With The Iowa Wine
The Lady with The Great Soundtrack
The Not So Interesting But Informative Lady

Okay, enough with the chatting... here you go!

What You'll Need:

1 bar Fels Naptha {Any pure soap will do. I've even heard castille soap works.}
1 c washing soda {This is not the same as baking soda! See above picture.}
1/2 c borax
{I purchased all of the above in the laundry section at my local grocery store. You can usually find pure soap at the dollar store.}
6 c warm water
5 gallon bucket with lid {got ours from Home Depot}

What To Do:
Grate your bar of soap using a box grater. {I used Fels Naptha soap which was fairly soft so this took me less than five minutes to do.}

In a large soup pan mix all ingredients. {Be careful with the borax, it has been known to irritate breathing in it's powder form. I had no problems, I just avoided leaning over the box when I opened it or scooped it out. Consider using gloves while handling it.}Bring to a boil. You want a pot with tall sides because as this comes to a boil it foams a bit.
Turn the burner down to a simmer and simmer for 10 or so minutes. This just allows all ingredients to dissolve and mix. Stir periodically to incorporate.
Add about a gallon worth of warm/hot water to your 5 gallon bucket {easiest to do this in your bathtub}. Add soap mixture. Stir with a large spoon {I felt comfortable using a metal spoon from the kitchen to do this}. Fill the bucket the rest of the way with hot water and stir again.
Let sit in a warm spot for 24 hours. {I left my bucket in the tub for a day so that it was out of the way.}
After 24 hours you'll find that your liquid is a large batch of jello-like stuff. {I assumed the jello-y stuff was on the surface. Oh no, my friend, it goes all the way to the bottom of the bucket!}
Now comes the part where you have options....
Out of everything I read and watched I found no consistency in the concentration of usage. In other words, you can use 1/4 c of the congealed mix straight from your bucket or you can consider it a concentrate and dilute it by half with water. {We don't usually have heavily soiled clothing, even with the kids, so I opted to dilute it.}

To dilute it, the bucket "blob" needs to be stirred and broken up. A spoon just didn't cut it here so I dug my arm in and mixed it by hand. {As a person with sensitive skin I expected to irritate my skin but I had no reaction.} I broke all the large chunks down, by hand {maybe 5 minutes of mixing} then filled an old plastic liquid detergent bottle half-way with the soap, using a funnel, and filled it the rest of the way with hot water. I put the lid on the rest of the detergent left in the 5 gallon bucket and put it in the basement for when I need more.
This stuff does separate when it sits so I need to shake the bottle before dispensing it but I've been using 1/4 c per load and have haven't noticed a difference from my usual detergent. I'll keep you posted.