Laundry Soap

Something good to eat -- lotion, or what am I up to now? This whipped yummy looking good enough to eat but is actually soap. It reminds me of my home-made marshmallow creme. It's why I labeled the jar clearly just in case because I have lots and lots of things in canning jars some edible and some not. 

As I said earlier in a blog post that I was about out of  powdered laundry soap and I can't find the soap which is fragrance free etc. on the store shelves in a decent size and online it is too expensive in my budget to order so I decided to go back to home-made. Yes, when the kids were little I always used home-made soap. Just home-made hand soap grated and added to boiling water to form a jell that I scooped a bit of and put in my top loading washer. This is a bit different and I think better.

Back then I was known to use pig fat, beef fat, deer fat, sheep fat, but definitely not chicken fat to make into soap. What ever animal  happened to be butchered that fall and had hard, not the soft greasy type fat which is why you don't use chicken fat, available after we made hamburger I ground and froze to be render latter and make into soap. It's why one year we had deer/sheep/pig soap combination and it was lovely.   

Now I'm not a fancy soap maker. Just good ole get the body clean soap is all I've ever made and I have to confess that I've never even made goat milk soap. Can you imagine this woman not ever making goat milk soap? Yeah, I know but it was on my list this year of to do's and then Waltzing Matilda duped us and didn't produce the amount of spare fat we needed. Yes, the pig failed us so now I'm going to try and round up some fat from someone who is butchering this fall. If all else fails I may even resort to buying lard to make soap. I'm just leary of the chemicals that might be lurking inside of a commercial product. 

I have a friend close by who makes fancy soap with wine, and dyes, and fragrance and all that foo, foo stuff. It is beautiful and I'm in love with her sunflower and thistle soap molds. I'd guess some of it isn't all with cocunut oil and such so maybe she knows a good source for lard. Her soap is really pretty and smells good but I can't get over the image of the battle of the perfume bottles. Think about it. Your shampoo is perfumed and your creme rinse, and then your body soap, and then you put on smelly deordorant and lotion and yes a battle of the fragrances has begun before you are even dressed. Then you put on clothes that have been perfumed with laundry soap and you apply goopy jell and other hair products with perfume and then move add makeup which some more perfume I'm sure too. 

A well dolled up lady may of just put on eight or more different perfumes. You can't tell me that a battle isn't raging and that those hundreds and hundreds of chemicals aren't having a negative effect on the person. It is why I don't dye my hair and why I don't perm it because I can't help but think of how your head has thousands of pores and those chemicals are seeping into your brain. My brain struggles enough to work correctly.

How can you worry about eating organic food and not worry about the largest organ of your body, your skin. I find it confusing because on the rare occasion I walk into a health food store I look around at the people and they don't look healthy as a whole. They look as sickly as those wandering through Walmart. Their hair is dull and their skin thin, wrinkled, and lifeless. Makes me think that there is more to this health thing than what you can purchase. In fact I know it there is. People are always asking me what kind of beauty regiment I do to look so young. Well folks, here it is. Eat well by growing as much of it as you can yourself, cook instead of buy ready made, drink lots of water, work hard, and stay away from the chemicals.

Am I healthy? Some doctors say yes and some no but I will say I am healthier than I have been in twenty years and I'm becoming healthier each year that passes.

So once again I'm going to return to home-made soap. It is not only a less expensive choice but a healthier one I'm sure. My soap is not creamy white anymore as it is quite old since it has been some times since I've made any soap but it works the same. The recipe I found called for a Fels Naptha soap. I looked it up and it has coconut oil and even lye. It looks pretty natural but it does have a few chemicals and of course perfume. I substituted my home-made soap instead in the recipe.

 

The gal calls her soap Mom's Super Laundry Sauce and I'm pretty impressed. Of course mine is quite different than hers since I used my own soap. When do I ever follow a recipe precisely? Anyway, I simply grated my soap, the entire bar, and put it in 4 cups of boiling water that I'd heated in a saucepan on the stove. Stir occasionally. Meanwhile in a small bowl mixed 1 cup of 20 Mule Team Borax and 1 cup of Super Washing Soada by Arm and Hammer, (not baking soda).

When the soap is melted then remove from stove  and add the mixed borax and washing soda. Stir until you don't feel the granuals on the bottom of the pan. Then pour into three - quart jars. 

  Let sit for four hours. It will separate like this. The mixture will still be warm when you put it into your blender or turn the mixer on it. That causes the mixture to blend and form the whippped appearance. The instructions called for turning the jars upside down but I like them right side up just in case I had to scrap out the soap  a bit from the edges of the jar. Then presto soap. I've give you the shortened version as I've linked to the site where you can get the full instructions.

I can say that I took a old sweatshirt with huge oil stains on the front and scrubbed in some soap with a scrub brush. This was a sweatshirt that had been washed and dried several times before and the stains magically dissapeared. I was impressed. I now have a front load washer so I am putting my soap in on top of my clothes. The instructions say for a top load to put in when the water fills and then add the clothes but what is the difference of adding on top of the clothes like in a front load washer? Just wondering. They recommend just a tablespoon.

As for getting rid of ordors like the site said it was miraculous at. Well, I tested that too with a milk soaked rag that I had thoroughly rinsed out. It still smelled milky when washed. The perfume in their soap probably helps mask ordors and I have to admit I really tested that one hard. Next wash I'm going to add a bit more borax when I'm faced with a ordor issue and see what happens.

I'd highly recommend this recipe and here is the site to go to for more details. This is truly one area you can save money in.

http://www.budget101.com/myo-household-items/whipped-cream-super-laundry-soap-3993.html