About a month or so ago I became compelled to find economical ways to bring my family and home into a greener lifestyle. We had already begun trying to revamp our eating thanks to the Atkins Nutritional Approach (and to all you naysayers out there, look at "phase 4" of the Atkins plan before you judge the whole Atkins lifestyle or better yet try reading the book ).
Anyway I digress, I have tried two different recipes for laundry soap, one liquid and one powdered. I purchased Borax, Washing Soda, Baking Soda, Sun Oxygen Cleaner, the ever popular yet not terribly natural Fels Naptha Laundry Bar Soap and White Vinegar. After reviewing many different types of recipes I through together a liquid recipe of my own proportions that included a little of everything I had purchased and proceeded to let it sit overnight as so many liquid recipes had recomended.
Now, the next day this stuff was supposed to be a gloopy gelatinous bucket of slime and instead had a bucket that was half clear liquid and half fluffy frothy waxy goop. So, I put it through my blender and turned it into what I wound up calling 'laundry fluff'. It works really really well actually. However the whole liquid soap process made me want to try out one of the powdered recipes I had found, namely one I found from http://www.pepperpaints.com I followed her recipe exactly with the exception of adding a bit of baking soda to mine. I also shared her desire to use something more natural than Fels Naptha and also picked up two bars of Dr. Bronners Magic Soap. I bought Lavender and Eucalyptus though.
I set up the other night with my husband while we watched a DVD and it took me the whole length of the Jackie Chan Movie "The Tuxedo" to finely grate the two bars of soap. I combined the powdered ingredients with the grated soap and put the lid on the container and shook it to mix everything together. It smells DIVINE.
I have gone back and forth between using the liquid goop I made, er, Laundry Fluff, and the powdered stuff I made. Both seem to work about the same and I am so glad because I much prefer the powdered version. I do have to say though, I will be getting a food processer because grating the soap by hand is a wee bit tedious.
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