spamtrap1888 wrote:
> On May 17, 3:18 pm, George Leppla > wrote:
>> On 5/17/2012 5:04 PM, Kalmia wrote:
>>
>>> On May 17, 3:04 pm, Doug > wrote:
>>>> I recall someone posted such a recipe around a year ago.
>>> look for
>>> 'OT making laundry soap' by George L. He estimated 4 cents per
>>> load.
>> We've been doing this now for over a year and it works really well. We
>> are going to try adding powdered Oxy-clean to the detergent in stead of
>> the color-safe bleach and give that a try. It is very cheap ($11 for
>> enough to do 190 loads)
>>
>> Here is the detergent recipe.. from January 2011:
>>
>> The recent discussion about making your own laundry soap/detergent was
>> interesting to me so I gave it a try. I decided to do a dry powder
>> instead of a liquid because of storage space, ease of use, etc.
>>
>> I looked around the Intergoogle and found plenty of recipes and this is
>> what I came up with:
>>
>> 2 bars Fels-naptha soap
>> 2 cups 20 Mule Team Borax
>> 2 cups of Washing Soda (Arm & Hammer)
>>
>> Grate the bars of soap into a fine powder. We used an old SaladMaster
>> hand processor. That should give you about 4 cups.
>>
>> Mix the shredded soap, washing soda and Borax together. We ran batches
>> through a food processor to grind the soap further and blend
>> everything really well.
>>
>> We washed one load so far and neither of us can tell the difference
>> between this and the liquid detergent we have been using... but maybe
>> there is a cumulative effect that we can't see yet. Since we will
>> continue to use bleach in the whites and color-safe bleach in the
>> colored clothes, there might not be much difference.
>>
>> Cost..... Bar soap is $1 each. The box of Borax was $4 and the box of
>> washing soda was $3. I figure the cost per load will probably be around
>> 4 cents (approximately 2 to 3 tablespoons per load) The cost per load
>> for the liquid detergent we were using was about 17 to 20 cents a load.
>>
>> With only two of us in the house, we really don't do a lot of laundry so
>> in the grand scheme of things, the monetary savings aren't all that
>> important. I am somewhat of a do-it-yourselfer and I just got curious
>> about this and decided to give it a try. Call it a hobby... but if I
>> had a bunch of kids, this would be a viable alternative.
>
> Congratulations. You are now laundering like they did before Tide came
> out, 67 years ago. Can I interest you in an old Maytag with a mangle?
> The hillbillies at the other end of the block have one on their porch,
> believe it or not.

Oh! I really really wanted to buy an old wooden washing machine,
one of the first ever made, to present it to a museum. It was NOT
expensive, but still more than I thought I should spend at that
point. Too cool.

--
Jean B.