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Recipe: homemade laundry liquid

Initially published on 24/06/11

In my previous article I explained what my favorite ecological washing liquid was (soap) and how difficult it was to find it (soap).
That is why I decided to make my own soap, but you can use any soap for this recipe. It is a good way to use soap leftovers, which are too small to be used easily, but you need a certain quantity.


The soap

(if you have one already, skip this paragraph)
Making soap requires some precaution as it is made with sodium hydroxide (same as for lutefisk, NaOH). You can use alreaydy made soap for the laundry liquid.

I may have the occasion to speak further about the process as I'll have more soaps to show within the next months :)

I made mine with olive (75%) and rapeseed (25%) oil. It might be interesting to use other cheap food oil but I don't know about their efficiency. I heard that lard (spekk) was even more efficient to wash clothes.

If you make your own soap for the body, and you failed one (I mean if it's caustic and not good for the skin), you can recycle it as laundry soap.

I also read somewhere that in Andalusia they recycled frying oil to make laudry soap. The carbon in it might not be good for the skin but you can not find a cheaper (it's waste! so it's free) oil for laundry.

The recipe*

The basis is soap with water. You can add krystallsoda (sodium carbonate, Na2CO3), to improve its efficiency, sodium bicarbonate (natron, NaHCO
3), borax (but I don't use it so I cannot tell you), and, for white clothes, sodium percarbonate (see last paragraph).

I made 1 liter to start but if you have a big enough recipient make 5 liters!
- 100g soap
- 1 liter water
- 20 gram krystallsoda
- 50 gram sodium bicarbonate
(- 22 gram borax) 

Put the soap, in as small pieces as possible, in a pot with boiling water. When it has totally melted, wait until it gets colder and add the other ingredients. Mix it well. You can wait or put it in a bottle right away. The mixture will stay in two phases so always shake it before use. With only soap and water, the texture will be a bit weirder than with natron and krystallsoda. Shake it too before use.

EDIT: Wait 24 hours before putting into a bottle and mix regularly; add water if needed.

Before and after shaking.

The results

I use an empty yoghurt (the 125g size) to measure the quantity. I put one yoghurt directly in the machine. The first time, the clothes did not smell anything at all but they were clean. Except one armpit of Mr Boyfriend's sport t-shirt, that slightly smelled sweat.
Today, I tried a second laudry, with the same quantity of liquid and...a golf ball I found on my way home. Washing balls (or tennis, or golf ball) increase the mechanic action on the clothes, which make that you need less washing liquid. True or not, this time, not only my clothes wer clean but they smelled good clean cloth (if this expression makes sense out of France).

Sodium percarbonate

It is a whitener but chlorine free, so it is a rather ecological product. I desperatly searched where to by it here, in vain. So I ordered Ecover's bleaching powder online (which is basically the same thing). They recommend 15gram to have shiny whites, and thirty to bleach old white clothes that turned grey. I bought it on http://www.bleieboden.no.
If someone know in what kind of shop to buy s.percarbonate, please tell me! Next time I won't have to buy something imported from UK! And you neither! A bientôt ;)

* This recipe is adapted from "Hind" 's on the French forum http://cephee-naturelles.bbactif.com/


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Comments

  1. trueabundanceSeptember 3, 2015 at 1:30 PM

    Thanks for the great article and recipe. I'm a little confused though. You say to use baking soda ( I can't get krystalsoda here in Spain) or to use sodium hydoxide. Sodium hydroxide is lye- NaOH. Baking soda is NaHCO3.
    Can I use either? and if I use the baking Soda must I still use the 50g sodium bicarbonate, which is also NaHCO3?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Green TouchSeptember 3, 2015 at 2:39 PM

      Hi! Thanks for your comment. Do NOT use sodium hydroxide (NaOH) in your laundry liquid; this is a dangerous product that is used in the making of soap.
      But in the laundry liquid recipe you use already made soap. You can add sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) or sodium carbonate (Na2CO3), or both but lately I've only been using soap and water (50/50) and it works pretty well.


      This is an old recipe and I don't update the blog anymore; but i can see why it was confusing (i think i meant "you can buy this product on the same shelf as sodium hydroxide at this particular shop"). I will erase this sentence and I really hope you didn't try it with sodium hydroxide.
      Good luck with your homemade laundry :)

      Delete

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