Homemade laundry soap

Expenses like laundry soap, dish soap, and other cleaning supplies add up over time (since they are things we use every day) and often can cost a lot of money. I mean 1 thing of Tide Pods is almost $15 (not that I buy that). I got into the whole "pods" craze for awhile until I realized that the cost hike greatly outweighed any convenience that it held. We went back to buying regular old liquid laundry soap and dishwasher soap.

I always buy the stuff that is on sale or that I have a coupon for, but even still, I really like to save money. I decided to try my hand again at making laundry soap. I had tried once before and was not a fan. The soap I made was powdered and used essential oils and scented bar soap (Dr. Bronners lavender bars). I didn't like that it was powdered and the scent was so overwhelming that it made me nauseous (any strong scents make me sick like that, it was so overwhelming that even with the container closed walking in the kitchen gave me a headache, so I tossed it).

This time I went about without any essential oils and used unscented liquid Dr. Bronners Castile soap. This soap will be runny, and is unscented, so if you are looking for a scented soap I would suggest adding a few drops of essential oil, or getting a scented Castile soap (I prefer unscented so I quite like it). I made this yesterday and used it today for the first time. It got everything just as clean as store bought, and it didn't leave my clothes smelling too strong (something I often run into). I used a full cap, this doesn't make a ton of suds, but it does work.

I used my empty gallon jug from the previous laundry soap I bought, and I used to Dr. Bronner's unscented pure Castile soap. You could use a scented one, or add a few drops of essential oil if you want, or you could use dawn dish soap (which is what the original recipe calls for).

I really wanted to try the kind that used fels napthia or zote bars, but they don't carry those here and I didn't feel like paying way more for them on Amazon (the price is much higher than it would be off of a Wal-mart or a grocery store shelf). I still plan on trying one of those recipes at one point and seeing which one I prefer, but for now this seems to do just fine.

If you really want some clean power for stains all you need is a little dawn, some baking soda, and a scrubber brush. I got some boy clothes from a friend and one very nice shirt had some blue stains on it (sorry didn't take any pics). I put a few drops of dawn on each stain, sprinkled some baking soda over it, scrubbed it really well, then left it to sit for about 30-60 minutes to pretreat. The stains were gone when I took it out of the dryer. I'm sure you could make a large batch of this ahead of time to keep as stain remover (worked much better than my shout did).