Does anyone make their own soap here?

[historyman]

Just wondered if anyone out there in 'Washerland' (sounds like the name of a washing machine theme park) makes their own laundry detergent. I do using the powdered recipe found here: http://www.thefrugalshopper.com/articles/detergent.shtml. Just wondering.....

 

[shawn]

Lye soap

I remember my grandmother making soap, I was to young to remember how she did it but I do know it had lye in it.
She would make a pan of it and then when it was ready she
would grind it up and use it in her Easy Spindrier.

 

[historyman]

Nobody?

It costs much less than store bought detergent (even powder). You can make it out of Fels-naphta, Octagon, or Zote. Somebody has to here...

 

[bosch2460]

I have........

I found that recipe on that same site as you did. I made it for a while. But be warned....its not good in hard water unless you use a water softener additive with it. It also requres really good rinsing. I used mine in my Bosch FL, and after about 3 months, my white towels started turning grey and it is irreversable. It worked great for light soil and left so scent, as well as soft without seprate softener. You just HAVE to make sure that you use enough of it (to where the wash water is slippery) and that you rinse it out throughly. I only made the liquid recipe...but I used an entire bar of Fels Naptha. Then after it cooled, I mixed it with an immersion blender. LOL. Hope this helps you.

Joel

 

[historyman]

OK...

Well, my understanding is that Borax is a water softener. I currently have soft water naturally. (A rarity I understand) Also, homemade laundry soap doesn't suds up like commercial detergent so 'suds lock' seems to be virtually impossible with the recipe. I'm using the dry recipie in a late 80s or early 90s GE Filter-Flo with the rinse water looking clear.

 

[lederstiefel1]

more information...

Hello to you all!
If washing with bar-soap would be really the solution of all problems, industry would have switched immediately back to it!
The thing is that bar-soap is a really good washing-agent but has several disadvantages: Soap is an anionic tenside and, as all of these tensides, very sensible to water hardness. To avoid this soda may be added but... again another but! ... soda (washing-soda, sodium-carbonate) is a precipitating softener that builds up bigger, non-solulable molecules of calcium and magnesia, to be seen as a tarnish of the water, and which will settle down if not hold in solution by tensides or by stirring. This will make whites become grey and harsh after a while if cold water is used for the first rinse. When using soap for washing it is absolutely nescessary to rinse the washing first in HOT and soft water (rain-water or water to which soda or other water-softener has been added) the second rinse should be warm and all other rinses can be with cold water. If not done properly soap-residues can cover the fibres and will become ranzid after a while, leaving a bad odour and stench on the washing!
But even if used the proper way whites will become grey and yellowish after a while IF not bleached and blued! This can be done by spreading the items in wet condition on the lawn and kept wet for several hours so that the oxygene from the lawn together with the ultraviolet sun-radiation can bleach it or you use bleach (chlorine or oxygene) on it. After all washing and rinsing has taken place the final rinsing should contain some blueing to keep the washing bright white.
Self-made soap-powders never contain all these substances to be needed to get a really good wash-performance and will clean the washing but make them look really dull after a while. If that has happened it is only possible to get the incrustation and greyishness out of the fabric again by BOILING it with twice as much detergents as usual for 1/2 hour and then wash it on maximum cycle available with at least a double rinse-cycle!
Borax is a water-softener but a weak one and its purpose is more to wash away proteins where it gives a better performance than with softening the wash-water; soda does that far better!

Any further questions? Don't hesitate to ask me!
Cheers, Ralf

 

[bosch2460]

I never had trouble with anything turning "tattle-tale gray" except for white towels. I am sure thats only due to the fact that they are so hard to rinse. Technically warm rinses are more effective for real soaps. I didnt use them. I did see a little difference when I added a little liquid detergent (Tide) to the initial mix. It made it congeal a little better, and I think added a little power to the mix. And you are right, there will not be ANY sudsing. My sister has a late 80's Filter Flo and I used this mix for baby clothes. I did get a few items turn gray after a while....so I switched to Ivory Snow. So basically, rinsing is key with this homemade stuff. Your naturally soft water will help....but just because that rinse water is clear thru the filter pan, doesnt mean it's all coming out of your clothes. Towels and Jeans are going to be your worst rinsers. But hey, if it works for you, then by all means, carry on. I really liked it while I used it...until I got those gray whites. I am really picky on my whites and they have to GLOW for me to be satisfied. Questions?? Bring em on! Good Luck.

Joel

 

[washerboy]

oh my gosh

I love doing the wash as much as the next guy...but now I'm drawing the line when it comes to "boiling" and "laying clothes on the lawn"...I had to chuckle...could just see my yard with my tidey whitties all laid out. Nevertheless...thanks for the info!!!

 

[peterh770]

"Using" Fels Naptha, Octagon, or Zote in some recipe is NOT the same as "making" soap.

I use grated Fels Naptha with some STPP and it works great, especially on greasy stains. And it is very easy to oversuds in a FL washer if you don't get the combination of soap and STPP just right, but usually once the machine drains, the soap suds pop easily so that suds lock does not occur. If you don't have a layer of soap suds in either TL or FL washers, you don't have enough soap to bind the hardwater minerals and risk tattle-tale gray. One way to help rinse any remaining soap away is to use water softener in the rinse also, at least in the first rinse to get the residual soap to resuspend in the water.

Soap making is a hobby I once looked into. Having no time, I dropped the endevour. For laundry soap, you have to make sure you have the right amount of lye to saponify all the fats, unlike soap for body use which should not have all the fat saponified or it will severely dry your skin. That said, laundry soap recipes are usually very basic and very simple: fat, lye and water. Some recipes add borax or washing soda to the mix so that the bar has built-in softeners.

 

[lederstiefel1]

bleaching on the lawn...

Hey - why not?

If you got stained whites - the best bleaching is lawn-bleaching! It is absolutely invironment friendly, very fabric gentle and doesn't cost anything at all!
I sometimes do it in summer or even on the snow in winter to get heavy stains out of table-napkins and -cloths!
Also washing with soap makes absolut soft (but not flabby and dull) and smooth (but nevertheless fast in grip) fabrics without any conditioning! The absorbing rate is better than with any other detergent I've ever used! And static cling is unknown when soap is used!
And blueing in the final rinse is not too bad, actually, isn't it?
But the other side is: the energy-rating is much higher than with modern detergents!! And cold-wash is totally forbidden; it wouldn't bring out any dirt and will left thick residues in your washing!
A final remark on the adding of liquid detergent to the soap: ofcourse, that's the clou! The addition of non-ionic surfactant (tenside) will help to prevent the residues on the fibres and helps to rinse it out even in colder or probably in cold water. But then you need more rinses and also all the good features of washing with soap will nearly disappear, too, as well as the good characteristics of the environment-friendlyness!
All things have two sides.....

Ralf

 

[maytagbear]

Why on earth

would I risk the jobs of the good people at P&G, Unilever, and Dial?

Or, modern detergents are a triumph of excellence and ease, so why use anything else?

Lye can be a very dangerous chemical, if you don't know what on earth you are doing.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[toggleswitch]

Lye can be a very dangerous chemical, if you don't know

Yes tell me about it.

My ex and I got some nasty burns from a commerical brand-name soap. [ WE showered separately]. Apparently the lye was a bit heavy in the recipe and quality control was snoozing.

Do I need to spell out which sensitive fleshy tissues were hurting/burning the most?

It was the soap's fault. REALLY!

 

[maytagbear]

Dear, dear Toggle-

Ouch!

Good to see you, buddy.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[bajaespuma]

As a child I remember vividly saving all of our bacon/meat drippings in coffee cans to be brought to my maternal Grandmother in Elmhurst who made soap until the sad day she had to be moved out of her house with a yard to an apartment in Jackson Heights. My mother was proud of her mother's resourcefulness so that there was always a bar of this white odorless slimy soap on our kitchen sink. Apparently my Grandmother also did all of the dry cleaning for the family in the back yard (my Mother says she can remember the smell of the Napthalene and the cans it came it). Her home-made soap really was disgusting, but did the job. I wish I had been able to watch her make it but that is lost with so much. This was a woman who was able, by sheer wits and willpower to bring her family through the depths of the Great Depression to the salad days after the War. She is one of the reasons that I am fascinated by things domestic and I too am proud of the contributions that Esther Demerjian Mizrakjian made to my life. May she rest in peace.

 

[nurdlinger]

As a child of the depression...

My Dad was always looking for ways to recycle, reuse, and save a buck. We too saved grease, and he made soap with it a few times. As he had great imagination, but was not detail-oriented, it never came out the same twice, and never was very good. We kept it at the concrete laundry tubs in the basement where it was used by myself and others when we had our hands greasy from working on machinery. It was also great for applying to woodscrews before driving them.

 

[dalangdon]

My mom came out of the depression and WWII and as such is very thrifty. All the time I was growing up, she separated cans and newspaper from the regular garbage, and saved grease. Why, I don't know, as Council Bluffs didn't have recycling, and everything ended up in the trash, but she did it.

But in her own way, she is rebellious; She knows how to can, bake, sew, and do "handiwork", but refuses to do so, saying that she "left all that back on the farm". Although she did help me with crochet when I had to learn it for HomeEc (it was the 70's, and we had to take the "girls" classes. I secretly loved it, except for the crochet part ;-)

I should ask her about soap.

 

[historyman]

I guess I should have been more specific.....

By "make soap" I meant grate etc. the soaps already mentioned. Sorry for the confusion. Uh, so it seems that Borax and washing soda mitigate for the most part the problems associated with hard water? The filter-flo mentioned doesn't have a warm rinse, unless I make it. Thanks for the advice.

It always amused me slightly when other people I've met (whom I'll refer to as 'Washer-Ludites' and not on here thank you) complained their machines did not 'do' say a 2nd rinse or warm rinse. It wasn't until I explained that all you have to do is use the dial to make the washer do what you want that they got it. )

 

[lederstiefel1]

Just a little comment from my side..
To make your own soap isn't really difficult - it is a lot of fun! I did it for years! Never bought any for ages!
But at the moment I'm too busy and have not enough space for drying.....
May be I catch up again in future! There was nothing better to our skins!
Ralf

 

[launderess]

Am all for "going natural" as the next gal, but using soap, homemade or otherwise for routine laundry is O-W-U-T, out.

There is a reason why soaps were replaced by detergents, and those reasons are still vaild. Soap does not clean all types of stains, in all temps of water the way detergents can. More importantly soap never,ever totally rinses clean from fabrics. This leads in time to dull, grey and often laundry with a whiff about it.

That being said, will use soaps like Fels Naptha for grease,oil and other stains the respond well to solvent cleaners (naptha). Will even mix a bit of soap with detergent for foam control and or to give laundry a fresh "soap" scent, but that is the extent of it.

Besides, plain soaps on their own are poor choices for laundry day, this is why Fels and the copycat naptha soaps were so popular for laundry day. The addition of petrol made for a soap that cleaned well, without all the rubbing and scrubbing. Fels also contained water softeners, fabric brightening agents, and other chemicals that made it almost like a detergent.

L.