Monday, January 20, 2014

3rd Pin of Interest - Mouth Watering...Laundry Detergent?

Oh. My. Gosh.

My sister and I made homemade laundry detergent and it smells heavenly. I want to keep the jar open and use it as an air freshener in my room.

I avoided Pinterest for a very long time. I have been singed up for years, but I never got on. I always thought it was a time suck (it is), it's filled with loads of stuff I can't do (it is), it will steal my soul (it has). But! I gave in to the temptation and it has proven to be very interesting and handy. It's given me a project for the year! What more could I ask for?

Let's talk detergent.

It's necessary. It's costly. It's so much fun to buy. Is that just me? I love to buy laundry detergent. I love Downy and Tide. It makes my clothes and bed smell like heaven. But it is so friggin' expensive!

Pinterest to the rescue!

For this Pin of Interest, we have How Does She? to thank. I've read a lot of blogs on detergent. Weird? Maybe. It's really interesting to me for some reason. Anyways, I've read a lot about it, and this blog seemed to put it the easiest way. There are some things I changed (of course), but I really did try to stay as close to the recipe as possible. I've never made detergent, and if this is going to keep my clothes clean, I don't want to screw it up.
Your ingredients:

Box of Borax
Box of Super Washing Soda (different from baking soda)
Baking Soda-her recipe called for 4 lbs! I only had 3.
2 Bars of Zote Laundry Detergent
OxyClean- she called for 3 lbs, I used about 6 heaping scoops because we only had a HUGE box
Downy Unstoppables
One gigantic mixing bowl

So to start, you need to shred the Zote into tiny pieces. A lot of people that I've read about use the fine grater on the cheese grater. Or their food processor. I don't have the patience to grate. I certainly am not fancy enough to own a food processor. So I went with the 3rd option: Microwave. Yep, microwave. I cut up the first bar into chunks like this:
Then I put it on a plate and set the microwave for 30 seconds. I didn't know what was going to happen. Turns out, nothing did. So I added a minute. Then it started to bubble up like a marshmallow. It was awesome! 
Just a fair warning, it is burning (literally) hot when you take it out of the microwave. What you need to do is let it cool completely, then you can peel off the layers and crumble them. Danielle and I used a butcher knife and some other random baking thing my mom had lying around the kitchen to make the crumbles even smaller. We found that if you cut the bars into smaller cubes and put on several different plates, then it goes a lot faster.
See! Several plates and a butcher knife.

Then This hand little pastry utensil
helped us further. 
Once that you have grated, processed, chopped or pulverized all of the Zote, then you just dump in all of the other ingredients. Now. Let me tell ya something. It's important that you have the patience to make the soap fine. If it's too big, it won't dissolve in the water. If it doesn't dissolve, then it sticks to your clothes. If it sticks to your clothes, and you put them in the dryer, it will leave burn marks on your clothing. SO! Patience. I have told everyone that I've talked to about this to have someone help you with this part. It is time consuming either way you do it. Unless you have a food processor. Then you are lucky. However, I'm not sure I'd want to clean this soap out of the processor, it's tenacious. And, I wouldn't want my future food to taste like Zotey soap. Mmmmmmmm.





So! Dumping. Ingredients. Make sure that you incorporate all of the ingredients as uniformly as possible. That was there is enough of everything in every load of laundry that you do.

You will only need 1-2 Tablespoons of the mix per load, depending on the size of load you usually wash. I'm terrible and cram clothes into the washer, so I use 2 good Tablespoons. Actually, I just use my 1/8 cup scooper and scoop it out that way.

This recipe makes a ton of detergent! The fact that you don't have to use all that much per load is awesome! It's way more inexpensive then buying the brand name stuff. And, if you figure that you don't have to buy separate fabric softener, you will realize that by making your laundry detergent, you really do come out on top money wise. The cool thing is...it works!!  I've used it and so has my sister. I washed clothes, she washed towels. Smells good and clean! We ended up splitting the spoils because a) she helped with the tedious task that is Zote and b) it made so freaking much! Just store in an air tight container. I used some Mason jars, a Glad thingie, and an old Animal Cracker container.
 Well, that's all I have on Laundry detergent. If you want to make some, and need some help, just ask. :)

Later gators! -----do it--->

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