Two Years Later....

I am happy to report that after two years solid of using my homemade laundry soap that it is the best!  

I have found that the soap lasts about 3 - 4 months with me doing our laundry and my son and his wife's laundry.  My son's laundry comes to approximately 7 loads a week and ours to maybe 10 loads give and take.  I use 2 tablespoons of the soap per load - never more.  I learned the hard way that using too much soap in your wash will leave spots on colored clothes.  

I made a bucket of this soap for my daughter, Kym, who has 3 kids and she said it lasted about 5 months using 1 tablespoon of the soap per washer load and she felt her clothes came out feeling clean and smelling fresh even just using 1 scoop of soap.


I have perfected the laundry soap recipe to using 1 bar of Fels Naptha soap and 1 bar of Lirio soap, a brand I buy at the 99c store.  The Lirio soap comes in a 14.1 ounce bar and several colors/scents.  I use the pink one that smells like a bouquet of flowers.  It holds it's scent until the last of the soap is gone from the bucket.

It now only takes me about 15 - 20 minutes to make a bucket of soap.  I still grate the 2 bars of soap by hand with an old cheese grater.  I also now wear latex gloves when I make the soap and still wash my hands and arms when done.

The other ingredients in the soap has stayed the same: about a 4 pound box of Borax, almost 4 pound box of washing soda and 4 pounds of baking soda.

Other than the Lirio soap that I buy at the 99c store, all the other ingredients I can get at Walmart or Target.  The cost is about $12 for everything.

My towels I dry in the dryer, but all our other clothes and linens I hang on the line to dry.  As soon as I get my husband to string more clotheslines on the poles, I will be drying all our wash outside.  I love the smell of the clean clothes when I bring them inside.  

And nothing is as heavenly as sleeping between sheets, blankets and quilts at night that smell like sunshine.

Making Laundry Soap

I have read on several blogs of homemakers making their own laundry soap.  I had been wanting to give it a try, too, for awhile now.  I bought all the ingredients at the Winco grocery store about a month ago while we were up in Menifee visiting some friends who were camping there.  Sadly, San Diego County does not have a Winco Food store.  I need to request one from the company! (That and a Hobby Lobby Store…. I miss the one I always went to in Iowa).

I did check out the stores around here, though, and I would have to run to a couple different stores to get all the ingredients, but at least I can still make the soap pretty reasonably.

You will need:

 

3 bars - 5 1/2 ounces each - Fels-Naptha laundry soap,  or

2 – 7 ounce bars of Pink Zote Soap. 

I bought this pink soap at the 99c Only store.  I am thinking you could probably even use Ivory bar soap maybe???  You think?  The Fels-Naptha soap says it is a heavy duty laundry soap.  You can use the Fels-Naptha to pretreat your stained clothes by wetting the stain and rubbing the bar of Fels-Naptha on it.

I used the Fels-Naptha soap in my homemade laundry soap recipe  today.

You will also need a 3 pound 7 ounce box of Washing Soda.

a 4 pound 12 ounce box of Borax soap and

and 4 – 1 pound boxes of baking soda (or a 4 pound box if you can find one).

Grate the soap bars.  I have read where some homemakers use a food processor or meat grinder.  I used a cheese grater which took me about half an hour to grate all 3 bars.  My arms tend to get weak really fast from an injury they haven’t healed from yet…. you may be able to grate the soaps faster. 

Be sure to wash your hands when you are finished.  Fels-Naptha can be irritating to your skin if you don’t at least rinse them.

Next open each of the boxes of other ingredients and dump into a large plastic container.  I am storing the soap in a used 28 pound Costco laundry soap bucket. 

I dumped in the Borax first and mixed it with the grated bar soap.  Then I dumped in the washing soda and baking sodas. 

I used a large plastic spoon to mix the soaps and baking soda altogether.  I tried to get all the clumps from the Borax broken up, but there are a few small lumps left.  The spoon in the picture above is the measuring spoon for when using the soap.  I used a large plastic serving spoon from the kitchen to mix the soaps with.

The homemade laundry soap filled the 28 pound bucket up to the top of the baking soda box, or just below the red words ‘laundry detergent’. 

All in all, it took me less than an hour to mix all the ingredients.  If you use a food processor to grate the bar soap you could probably have the laundry soap made up in about 15 minutes or less.

The directions for use say to use 1 to 2 tablespoons of laundry soap per washer load of laundry.  You should get about 150 loads washed with this soap.  I had saved my receipt so I could tell you exactly how much it cost to buy all the ingredients…. but wouldn’t you know I can’t find what I did with that receipt! 

I do know that I paid almost $20 for the 28 pound Costco bucket of laundry soap.  For the 2 of us, that bucketful lasts us about 3 1/2 months of washing.  The bucket says it does 200 loads of laundry.

I paid a little over $10 for all the ingredients to make my own laundry soap and I should get roughly the same amount of loads washed as the Costco brand. 

I will begin using the soap tomorrow, so I will let you know how well it does then!

Beginnings

I love everything to do with homemaking. Cleaning, organizing, crafting, gardening, cooking, baking, entertaining -- everything! I especially love old-fashioned homemaking. To do things the way my mother and grandmothers and great-grandmothers, and so on, did... well, it gives me a lot of pride and comfort knowing I am keeping traditions alive.

Homemaking hasn't really changed through the centuries. Dust is still dust, clutter still has a way of appearing from nowhere, mouths still need to be fed, company still comes to call, flowers are still pleasant to look at, and we still do not have enough storage space. The products we use to clean with may have changed, but I don't know if they are any better than the soap and water our ancestors used.

I have always had a dream of writing about homemaking in its entirety. When my kids were little I dreamed of writing a magazine about homemaking. I wasn't thrilled with the ones already on the newsstand because I don't care to read about people from Hollywood. Frankly I find their way of life and ideology undesirable. My heroes, the women I have always looked up to, were stay-at-home moms who volunteered to teach VBS during the summer and held our church youth get - togethers on Friday nights in their homes. The ladies who brought the most delicious, mouth-watering food to our church picnics and potlucks. Women who made their own clothes and their children's clothes and who crocheted, knitted, quilted and made other handmade things for their homes and gifts. You know, the ones that when you walk into their homes you feel comfort, love, warmth, and you can smell the aromas of the foods that were cooked for the family’s last meal.

When I was growing up my dream/goal was to live in a big yellow house in a small town with 4 seasons that was full of love and comfort and was clean, have a dog and umpteen kids, a loving husband who I adored, and to be active in my church. I wanted the big vegetable garden in the backyard and the clothes hanging on the clothesline drinking in the wonderful sunshine for me to smell on them later. I wanted flowers in my yard and big, shady deciduous trees that changed with the seasons. I would sit in school and let my mind wander to the days when I would be the mom and imagine myself at the grocery store or buying fabric at K-mart for my latest sewing project.

Here I am 35 years later. I have raised 4 kids that are grown and on their own. My two daughters are married and moms themselves, giving me 3 grandkids (my kids are from a previous marriage, my husband has 5 kids from his previous marriage - that gives us 9 kids total!). I lived in a big, yellow house with a big vegetable garden and flowers and trees in the yards in a small town in Iowa for 12 years(that means I had 4 seasons!!). I taught Sunday School, Awanas, VBS, Pioneer Club and was active in our church. I hung my clothes on the line to dry and have grocery shopped in many different grocery stores and purchased tons of fabric and craft items!!

Now I live in a small, yellow house in a big city and am now married to a loving husband whom I adore.  I am still living my dream.

But there was still the dream of writing about my passion -- being a homemaker. About a year ago I discovered blogs on the internet. Wow! I have a whole list of them on my 'favorites' that I am reading through and the ones I enjoy the most that I continue to keep up-to-date on, I will be adding to my blog list on the sidebar here. I think many women have such inspiring blogs that lift me up in my Christian faith and even motivate me when I don't feel like dusting. Ah... but there is still my desire to write my own homemaking blog.

I tested the waters by beginning a blog about my daily doings in May of this past year, although I slacked off during the heat of the summer, but am back to blogging (ourhoneypie.blogspot.com). Now, though, it is time for me to start my homemaking blog. And here it is!! Yippy Skippy! I am excited to begin this new adventure.

This blog will be about all things homemaking. Cooking, crafting, gardening, cleaning, entertaining, etc. It will mostly be about how things were done in days gone by. There are a lot of blogs out there who show you how to keep house the modern way. This one will be mostly about the way our mothers, grandmothers and even great-great-great grandmothers managed their homes.

I hope you come back often to visit. I also hope that you will find inspiration and motivation here to keep your homes with love, comfort and cheer!

The house is only an empty building until a home is made in it.