Friday, January 6, 2012

About that Homemade Laundry Soap

Living in a new town now, I've been searching for the ingredients of my homemade laundry soap: Borax, Washing Soda & Fels-Naptha soap. These items can be a little hard to find. I've often had to go to different stores, or search along the shelves of one store. Not any more!
Thank you, WalMart! And this isn't a Super Wally's. This is just a little store. What caught my attention is how these items are all shelved together. It makes me wonder if WalMart is now aware of their customers who make laundry soap, and who want to find these items conveniently placed together.

See the prices? Fairly normal. $3.38 + $3.24 + 97¢ = $7.59. (I did that math in my head, so if it's wrong, don't tell me.) Let me put this in economical perspective: I bought my first box of Borax and of washing soda over 7 months ago. For each batch of soap, I use only a cup each of these two items, so those boxes last a long time. A very long time. I'm not sure how many bars of Fels-Naptha I've used. Six? Seven? Basically, I've used well under $15 worth of ingredients, to have laundry soap for my family for over 7 months. Can you say that? (That includes a whole batch that I sent with Anna to college.)

In my heart, I'm a domestic. I enjoy doing things like this that involve home-keeping. Some women don't, and I'm totally cool with that. It's just a preference. But it sure does save money.

4 comments:

Gumbo Lily said...

I like to make it too, but haven't in a few months. I have the ingredients though! I sometimes use Ivory Bar instead of Fels Naptha.

Jody

Sarah said...

I use my own soap instead of the Fels-Naptha. I just make a basic castille soap recipe, let it cure, and then grate it fine with the small side of a cheese grater. Then, for fun, I mix all the powders together and add in drops of whatever essential oil I have on hand!

M.K. said...

Sarah, that sounds wonderful! I bet your soap smells much better than mine. I think one time I did use some of my own soap, grated. But it was must moister than the Fels-Naptha. It is a good idea. I haven't made any soap lately, but I'm hoping to this spring, as we deplete my stores. I miss making it a lot.

Pom Pom said...

I'm domestic, too. I think I've always been happiest when puttering around the house, even in the doll house when I was a grubby little kid!
How long will you housesit?
By the way, I used to wash my face with Borax. Wow. That was probably dumb.