Glamping Baba: February 2012

Homemade Laundry Soap

3 bars Ivory Soap

4 lbs. Borax

4 lbs. Arm & Hammer Washing Soda

4 lbs. Arm & Hammer Baking Soda

Mix and store in airtight container.

1 to 2 tablespoons per load.

Finding Washing Soda is difficult, but I did eventually find a big box in Safeway. Borax was easy, Walmart, Sobey's, Safeway carry it. When you can't find Washing Soda, some people say you can use Baking soda and keep it in the oven at 400 degrees..for an hour ....and substitute....but I opted out of that. If I couldn't find the real stuff...was not going to do it. A chemist said it will not be the same as Washing soda. Baking soda and Ivory soap of course are easy. I started out with Dove soap because it was pink, and scented with pomegranate and lemon, but when I got home I realized it had a moisturizer in it and decided against using it in case the lotion did something awful to the clothes. So back to the store. I opted for Ivory as I'd like to keep it gentle. White Ivory kind of took the fun out of the colour but it looked cool grating.

Borax is a natural laundry booster with no toxic fumes and friendly to the environment....$5.00

Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda is a also an all natural laundry booster...$7.49 for 3 kilogram box.

Ivory Soap.... Of all the commercial soaps, Ivory has been considered the best by holistic people. $1.97

Baking soda....leaves clothes clean and fresh removing odors...$4.13

I'm supposed to get 150 loads from this, so it comes out at about 12 cents a load. I just paid 24 bucks for a box of Tide at 120 loads...20 cents.....so it's not alot cheaper....just fun to try and no chemical odor.

There will be nod suds in your washer...but suds are for appearance, because they do not clean.

People with front loaders must take out their little liquid tray before using this or it will clog.

Some people with front loaders have a problem getting odour out of their washer and find the homemade detergent takes care of this problem, leaving the washer fresh.

I just did my first load of white towels and facecloths with makeup and they came out nice and clean.

Oooops... put the French side on the Washing Soda facing camera.

I mixed mine outside in a double garbage bag just to keep the dust controlled of all the powders because none of these should get in your eyes. It was easy to shake all the ingredients together like this.