During the last couple of months I have been looking for a large stock pot casually as I went to thrift stores to make my own laundry soap. Well now that I found one for $6.00 at Goodwill, I figured it was time to do it.
I have only ever used liquid laundry soap, which takes a bit more preparation than making a dry laundry soap. I used a recipe I found at Wellness Mama after doing a google search.
So, yea you can make your own laundry soap, but is it really worth your time?
To be frank… it is definitely worth your time.
So how did I come up with over $25.00 an hour savings?
Well first, I compared that to the cheapest alternative of laundry soap that I could use. Now I cannot use the cheapo stuff, my skin gives a reaction. I have had to use either All or Tide brands in the past. Of those two All was generally the cheaper alternative. So when I was picking up supplies at Walmart to make this, I looked at the price per load for their largest liquid laundry soap for All.
That price was $0.09975 per load
Now making my own laundry soap costs $0.013 per load, but a single batch makes 5 gallons or 160 loads!
So buying that much in All detergent would cost $14.96, and the work took a total of 30 minutes for a cost of $2.02 for the entire batch, so for a half hour I saved $12.94 or $25.88 per hour!
Is it actually difficult to make the laundry soap?
No, for the most part I followed the steps provided in the blog, and I have a step-by-step with a few pictures.
Step 1: Fill your pot with a 1/2 gallon of water.
Step 2: Grate your a bar soap directly into the pot with water. I used a Kirk’s Castile Coconut Oil Soap bar that I got in a 3-pack.
Step 3: Gradually Heat the mixture and stir occasionally until dissolved
Step 4: Add 4.5 Gallons of water and stir in 1 cup of Borax and 1 cup of Super Washing Soda
Step 5: Stir well and turn off heat.
Step 6: Cover pot and leave overnight
Step 7: Give it a good stir until smooth and use a 1/2 cup per load of laundry!
Optional step: transferring all of the liquid into other containers (such as old laundry soap container or milk jugs), I am lazy and just store it all in the pot I got from Goodwill. Once it is low then maybe I will dump the last gallon or two into a couple of containers so that I can make the next batch.
Does it actually work?
Yes it does. Both the wife and I work in a office so our clothes don’t really get that dirty, but… recently we were eating some raspberries and a few fell while I was eating them. I picked them off the floor but didn’t notice a couple fell on my chair as you can see the result of this:
So if you are wondering how well it can remove stuff like this, here is how it turned out:
There you have it. A way to make laundry soap at home and a way to save money all wrapped into one!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, you do not need to click on the links and they will not effect the price in which you pay for the product. If you do happen to click on a link and purchase a product I may receive a small compensation for this transaction. But I recommend being a frugal shopper and seeing the prices in your local stores, as it appears that Amazon is probably not the best price on these products. Also, please research what is best for you!
Ha! I always think of the Duggers making their own soap when someone brings this up. I’m not opposed to it, but I really do LOVE Tide!
Hey Holly,
I like Tide as well, but my opinion may be skewed as my skin will have issues with cheap laundry brands (and I always use free & clear, but the cheap free and clears still seem to give me issues…). My biggest concern in this experiment was that I would make a huge batch of soap and basically have to throw everything away because my skin wouldn’t like it. So I made sure to find a decent natural bar of soap so I would hopefully not have a problem (because… some bar soaps would irritate my skin as well).
It was worth the money compared to what I could buy, maybe not for you if you are great at combing coupons and sales!
We make our own soap as well and we really like it. Our clothes are just as clean as they’re always been. We went with the powder detergent because it is easier to carry since our laundry room is not inside the apartment… we have a walk about 100 yards. I’ve tried the liquid one as well, but that’s when I was living in a place where the washing machine was inside the apartment and I could leave the 5-gallon bucket of detergent next to it.
I really recommend everybody should give it a try. The dry kind takes like 5 minutes to make. Just mix the ingredients in a food processor and that’s it.
Yea the dry detergent looked very simple to make, but I am just accustomed to liquid soap so I went with what was comfortable to start. Yea the food processor makes the process much quicker and I could have done that rather than manually grate the soap, but hey I had that old cheese grater I never used before and go a good little exercise. Plus then I don’t need to clean all of that soap, I can just use it again next time.
We’ve been making/using our homemade laundry detergent since November and LOVE it. Our clothes do get more dirty here down on the farm, though, so when I pull the detergent out of the 5 gallon bucket, I add 1 c. water to two c. detergent, instead of half and half. And it works great for getting the really dirty clothes clean. In fact, when I was hanging laundry on the line the other day, my oldest said “I just can’t stop smelling this laundry – that soap smells SO good!” Success!
LOL at smelling the laundry, that is hilarious! Yea when comparing the prices I did the smallest load for both. But for us a 1/2 cup of detergent works fine for a full load unless if clothes are dirty. But you would also need more of the regular detergent then too, so the savings probably stay on par.
I really like the coconut oil soap I found, but I will browse a bit more next time I need soap… which will be awhile since I got a 3 pack, and 3 batches of this will probably make it two year or more!
Thanks for outlining the steps…it really seems easy to do. I guess I don’t buy detergent that often, but I’m sure the savings do add up. I will have to try it.
Hey Andrew,
I don’t have a need to buy it too often either, but for a 1/2 hour of work to do this every maybe 9 months to a year isn’t all that bad. And if I can save more money than what I make going to work, then it is probably worth doing even if I can’t realize the savings too often.
I’m definitely going to have to give this a try. My only thought would be if it’s okay for HE (high efficiency) machines. We’ve got one of those, and I know I have to buy the detergent that has the little HE logo on it. Time for some research. And can I ask, does it smell good?
Hey Ryan,
I don’t have a HE washer, but as I looked at the comments on the blog where I found the recipe it seems that a few people have said that you can indeed use it in a High Efficiency machine. I don’t have the most effective nostrils, but my wife commented that she likes the smell of it. You can use scented bar soaps as well from what I read commentors doing to add scent.
Nicely done Kipp! I’ll have to give this a try. How are you storing it? Reusing a laundry soap container?
Hi Brian,
I bought a 21 quart stock pot at Goodwill for $6 and it came with a lid. I made everything inside of this pot and I store it in this pot. When it gets lower I will put the remaining amount in milk jugs or old laundry containers.
I purchased everything I needed at Walmart, Amazon’s only price that came close was Borax, which is actually the same price if you have a prime membership (currently I don’t, but I will have to see if that is worthwhile).
I hope it works out for you!
Very nice Kipp! We’ve tried doing this once or twice as a way to save money and have something that didn’t agitate everyone’s skin. It honestly just cam down to a time aspect for us. We’ve found the detergent at Costco works well for us and they have a sale on it every so often so it generally works out well for us. That said, if you can do it, which is obviously possible then it’s a nice little way to save some money.
Not sure on Costco, I know when I browsed their store a couple weekend’s ago, I didn’t see their variety in Free and Clear, maybe I missed it? That said… it would really suck to buy a huge amount of detergent I basically can’t use if it doesn’t work out (which was my concern with this experiment, but it worked!).
I have never attempted to do this – but your instructions make it look so easy! A coworker was just telling me that she started making her own because it was the best way to clean cloth diapers.
Hey Autumn, I did not find it to be difficult at all. You could even grate the bar of soap in a food processor as well to make it quicker.
Oh wow, now that’s pretty neat. I wash my lunch dishes at work to save money on water and soap. And you never know, you can turn making soap into a full blown business with your own twist.
Cheers.
That is an interesting idea! Not sure if it is cost/time effective for soaps though, haven’t looked into that yet.
I always say I am going to make my own and never did. Reading how much you saved and how it really works I’m more convinced that I need to do this and soon.
Hi Brit, I did not find it difficult to make at all but the savings were great! I try to value savings in time because for me that is the best measurement to see if the activity is worth continuing or not.
I keep meaning to try this. I wonder if it will work better on baby poo than the store bought stuff
or maybe I just need home made stain stick!
Hey Kirsten,
I cannot say for certain on that as I don’t have any kids clothes. I know on the blog where I found the recipe people were discussing using it with cloth diapers so I know it works, just not sure if it is better?