Make Your Own Laundry Soap

After running out of our last bottle of 7th Generation laundry detergent and using our Citrus Magic Fine Wash for a couple of loads, I decided to finally try making my own laundry soap. "Make Your Place" and Soule Mama both use the same ingredients, but I used Soule Mama's proportions since she had 4 children at the time of the post (5 now) and the MYP proportions suggested it would wash 3 loads. The Kirk's soap acts a bit differently than Dr. Bronner's, so I'm hoping that it will still wash well. Though all that grating made my hand a bit tired, it was exciting to make this "on my own". Angelo is always available to stir and pour, as long as he's awake, of course. It took a bit of convincing to keep Salty and Thomas the trains out of the mix, though. ;) A load is spinning now, and probably for the first time ever, I'm wishing I had more laundry to test this out on. That alone worth making my own laundry soap!

Where I got what:

Baking Soda - Mountain People's Co-op

Washing Soda/Soda Ash- Dharma Trading Company (left over from some dying projects... I believe Amazon also sells it if you can't find it locally)

Borax- Rose Mountain Herbs (Angry Chicken, who is awesome about sharing all kinds of information has a link here. If you buy something, go through the link and pass on the love. :)

Castile Soap ihealthtree (haven't found any local non fish children's DHA, so went ahead and ordered this for efficiency, but most health food stores will carry castile bar soap...)

BTW, SM mentions using 1/8 cup per load. That's about 2 TBS. I have an extra TBS measuring spoon, and it seemed to be useful in getting the powder out of the jar. Also, before mixing all this up, I looked up whether it was safe for high efficiency machines and because it is low-sudsing, it is safe.

If you have already made your own laundry soap/powder or try this out on your own, please let me know what your results are. I'll keep you posted on our results here.

Happy laundry day!