The Great Laundry Adventure

Ok, so maybe I am trying to make this sound more interesting then it actually is. But of all the household chores, my bane is the laundry. With 5 people in the house, not to mention all the towels and diapers...there is ALWAYS laundry that needs washing, sorting, folding and putting away. I can keep up *mostly* with the cleaning and sorting. But more often then not, my poor family has to live out of a laundry basket as the "folding and putting away" rarely gets completed. There is just so much of it! And folding is impossible to do with an almost one year old present, since she thinks that taking apart carefully piled/folded clothes is the most fun EVER. Yeah, not a happy mom here.

So while I still will have to battle the mountains that are my family's clothes, I can at least make the washing part something that interests me. And, as for many things in my life; the best way to make it better is to personalize it. That means make it my own...meaning literally, making my own! So I am trying my hand at my own Laundry Soap.

I have been doing research for a while - years actually, wanting to do this. But have not had luck finding Washing Soda at any local store. And it is tons more expensive online. So today, as we had to go to the dreaded Walmart for some items, I decided to look again (even though I had come up empty handed looking there before, but that was a few years ago.) And they had it! So piecing together my own recipe, using ideas from several different sites/blogs/friends, I hope I got a good mix...

So come with me, and you'll be, in a world of pure..errr...laundry?

Ok, I will stop trying to make this interesting. I know it is a lost cause!

I started with:

3.5 cups of Borax
2 cups of washing soda
1.5 cups of oxi-clean
1 bar of Fels-Naptha soap (also purchased at walmart)
And one glass cookie jar for storage.
 The first thing I did was grate my soap. I have heard you can use any soap you like. But this brand seems to be what most people start with, and I actually liked the very light citrus scent it had so, why not start here? I figured I was not making a huge amount - so if I need to do it different next time I can.

 I used a regular, run-of-the mill cheese grater. And it made such fun little soap curls! It looked freakishly like real cheese....see? Don't worry, no one ate any one accident. I kept careful watch!










While adding all the ingredients together - I discovered that while a whole-house fan is awesome when it is nice outside. Pouring things, like Borax from the box into my measuring bowl in front of an open door with the fan on may go under the category of "not so smart." And that is my polite way of saying it.

Needless to say, I turned the fan off and I don't *think* that I inhaled too many toxic fumes? If I start spouting nonsense words here then feel free to call 911. This time. Sometimes I spout nonsense words because it is fun, so don't make that a general rule. THIS TIME call 911 if I am acting crazy. Not next time. Unless of course I tell you that you should next time...though if I have gone truly crazy I doubt I would be telling you to call 911 so casually. So I will leave it to your judgement. Just know that if you are responsible for causing me to be institutionalized and/or sent to the hospital from laundry soap poisoning then you are responsible for my children.

To be clear, my kids were out of the house when there was air-born borax, oxi-clean and washing soda. So they should be safe. And my lungs should be very clean!

Err...on to making my laundry more fun.

So here was everything in the bowl - because you know you wanted to see that:

And I began mixing....and mixing...and mixing...and mixing...and mixing...and thinking there had to be a faster way of doing this:

And mixing...and mixing. Until:

VOILA!!   

Isn't it so pretty? I knew you would think so. I will use one TBS of my soap per load (2 if it is a very dirty load - so 2 for all the kids clothes...) and I have a HE front loader so it goes right into the drum before the clothes do.

Now, aren't you completely excited and motivated to go and put a load of dirty laundry into the washer? I know I was. I did! Just a little while ago. In fact, you should go and do that right now. Just to celebrate with me my new laundry soap. We could be laundry buddies! The very load I started washing is drying now and I just might fold and put it away the very moment it is out of the dryer because I am so inspired by my great laundry adventure. I also have to use cloth on the behind of my child all day so I have a load of diapers to wash with my new soap. I will admit, I almost re-washed the load I had waiting to go into the dryer, just so that I could use my new soap. But I decided that diapers are some of those things that always need to be washed pretty quickly again, so I needed to have patience, and use my soap on actual dirty clothes.

There you have it.  My adventure for the day. Admit it, you are inspired. Truly, does life get any sweeter then this?