DO NOT ATTEMPT TO EAT THIS!
That pretty pink stuff is not strawberry pudding or strawberry-anything for that matter. It's home made laundry soap! I just had to show off my insanity/DIY-focus/frugal skills.
I didn't want to spend the 5 bucks for laundry soap because I am THAT cheap. Instead I bought a bar of pink zote soap (about a dollar), in the back of my mind remembering that I had seen a recipe to make your own laundry soap on the internet somewhere.
Here's the recipe:
1/2 bar of zote, grated
water, 1 gallon=16 cups
1 cup baking soda
First, grate the zote and put in large pot with enough water to cover it.
Heat on medium/low until melted.
Add 16 cups of warm water and remove from heat.
Pour in 1 cup of baking soda and stir until dissolved.
Transfer into container. I used an old laundry soap container.
Here are pictures from the process:
The ingredients:
Melting the soap:
After adding water and baking soda:
Quite possibly the hardest part: pouring into container for storage.
FYI: Shake mixture before using. Use 1/2 cup for regular load and 1 cup for badly soiled loads of laundry.
Let's do the math. I'm pretty sure the soap was $0.89 and I already had the cup of baking soda at home. This recipe makes about a gallon, which is 16 cups or 32 (1/2 cup) loads. $0.89 divided by 32 is 0.02781 cents which I will round up to 3 CENTS A LOAD! Not bad, even taking into account the 15 minutes it took to make and the clean-up of the soapy dishes.
So I know it is cheap. The real question is: DOES IT WORK?!
I'll post tomorrow how well it works. I have a load of towels in the wash right now! Hopefully it will work despite the hard water here in Arizona.
6 comments:
Good idea
Towels are clean and smell nice!
You go girl. Nothing cheap about being penny-wise.
I used to make my own soap until the State of NJ decided the people here were too stupid to possess lye. Some crap.... I do the grating of soap right into the tub and add borax then the water. Let is sit for a while then do my wash. Works well; but your idea outshines mine and I am glad to have such a bright lady for a niece. A1
Thanks Double A!
http://tipnut.com/homemade-laundry-detergent/
I made the liquid laundry soap tonight and I added just a little essential lavender oil. What a wonderful smell the very clean wash had coming out of the washer. Thank you very much my number three niece. How did the soap work on your rug!
I think I went into the cleaning of handknotted rugs with you in some detail but Doris Dukes got huffy because her neighbors in Newport did not like to see the eating in her yard so she moved them inside. Can you imagine the mess. But the proper way to wash an oriental rug is to take it to the proper facility which is a smoothly finish concrete flooring with a slight incline. They lay the rug with no wrinkles on the floor and then they soak the rug with a tepid water then a mild soap wash making sure the rug gets completely wet and then they rinse it in cool water until all the soap is gone. The water runs from the rug because of the incline and in the hot arid desert or an area replicating the desert the rugs are clean and dry in no time. Thanks again Moon Pie
Post a Comment