It has been entirely too long since I held myself accountable about simplifying. This latest little project was taken on after watching Chemerical on Netflix. Good golly. Has anyone else watched this? Turns out we had way more chemicals in our home than I thought. I can’t say I threw out every single little thing that isn’t completely natural {hello, L’Oreal mascara!} but I did pare down. And I was inspired to make some homemade laundry soap. In the documentary they made a liquid detergent but honestly, it just seemed like a little too much work. Because it is all about doing the fewest things to get the most reward around here. Enter the world’s simplest homemade laundry soap recipe that I’m sharing with you. You’re welcome.
Now, let’s be real. I totally did NOT make this recipe up on my own. I went off of this awesome tutorial at Keeper of the Home. Something about the “10 minutes, 3 ingredients” in the title spoke to my sense of laziness efficiency. Sidenote: I found myself thinking one day, when I’m all grown up, I’ll know and be able to do all the things that Stephanie {Keeper of the Home lady} does. So organized, so clean, so homemade. And then I realize I’m almost 30. And I just flick those silly uber-together dreams off like a pesky fly and embrace what I can do. Amen? Amen! Because sometimes you have to truth-talk yourself through these things.
Anyway. You just start with these three simple ingredients. You can find all of them at HEB or Walmart. And – bonus! – they are all super cheap!
{} 1 cup washing soda
{} 1 cup Borax
{} natural bar of soap
That is it. Beautiful in its simplicity. {Also, Borax is not to be confused with boric acid. Borax is sodium borate, which is a naturally occurring substance and is safe to use. I mean, don’t eat it or anything. Boric acid is the dangerous one. Although I wouldn’t eat that either. ;)}
First, you grate your entire bar of soap. Kitchen-savvy people with supersonic kitchen appliances might have a better way to to this, but I just grated it by hand. In other words, I was literally sweating by the end of the bar of soap. And my hand was cramping. Turns out grating a bar of soap is a perfectly acceptable cardio workout.
I had to take several recovery breaks. And fix myself some ice water. But after I finally finished grating it, I had a bowl of tiny soap shavings. I used Kirk’s Castile Soap which smells all coconut-y and fresh and clean. So I’d recommend something like that, high on the smells-good-meter. Also, several tutorials I read said to make sure you get your soap bar shavings small enough so they will dissolve in your washing machine. I just used the smallest holes on my cheese grater. Stephanie said she put hers in the Vitamix. I’m a little OCD about our Vitamix and that made me a bit nervous.
Then you just measure out 1 cup each of Borax and washing soda and dump it into the bowl with your soap shavings.
Give it a little stir and pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
This makes almost a full quart-sized Mason jar. And I use 1-2 tablespoons per load, so that will probably last me a few weeks. I’m on the lookout for a bigger {pretty} container.
And done. Blissfully easy.
