Tips for Homemade Laundry Detergent Making

While it is super-duper, stupid, easy to make this homemade laundry detergent, I confess I didn’t make another batch until yesterday.  It’s been 11 months since I ran out.  The thing that really deterred me from taking time to make another batch was the grating of the Fels-Naptha soap.   Total pain.  However, I did mention in my original post that it would be quicker to blend in a blender.  Now that I have a new blender, I used my old blender for this tedious job.  Booya!

Just wanted to share a couple tips that helped this go around.

• freeze the bar soap before you grate, chop or blend it.  This way it doesn’t get sticky, it’s more brittle and chippy which makes it much easier to chop and blend.  My first bar chipped away into shavings when I chopped it, probably didn’t need to blend it.

• I did a rougher chop with the second bar to see how well it would blend.  Worked like a charm in the blender and less chopping.  Yeah, dog, that’s what I’m talking about!

• If you have a blender and feel okay about blending soap in it, then DO IT.   Holy moly, it’s so.much.easier.  It actually turned the soap into a powder. (disclaimer:  It didn’t hurt my blender one bit, but I can’t guarantee results with your blender.  Blend at your own risk. )

 

• When you add your ingredients, stick your hand in the garbage bag with the box of each ingredient, then hold the bag tight around your hand so when you dump it out of the box, you don’t get an upheaval of powder in your face.
• After you’ve combined all the ingredients and you’re ready to put it in its pretty container, try this little tip.  Rather than dump the mix out of the top of your garbage bag, hold it over your container and cut a hole in the corner of the bag (like a frosting bag).  This way you can funnel it into your container much easier and less powder puff in your face.
• This time around, I’m adding a few drops of lemongrass oil to each load.  I like the added scent.  My friend adds Purex crystals to her entire batch of homemade detergent.

Those are my tips from this time around.  For a detailed step-by-step and ingredient list, go to the original post here.  As I mentioned in my last follow up post, it lasted me about 7 months.  Looking forward to not running out for a while because I have been cranking through the laundry like mad lately.

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