Laundry Sauce - One Bowl Method

I have made laundry sauce three times now. I think it is my favorite homemade laundry detergent. There is a variation out there where you just screw the mason jar on your blender to whip it up. Since I don't have a blender like that, I have been using this variation from "The White Silk Purse" >>>  go here to see that recipe ... But my version of this recipe simplifies the process even more.


I have broken down the measurements from the original recipe to make the process easier. I now make laundry sauce in a big glass bowl with an air tight lid. It sits overnight in the bowl, and I blend it in the bowl the next morning, and then put the sauce in glass when it is finished. This process is SO much quicker and cleaner.

INGREDIENTS: 

2 bars (5oz ea) fels-naptha soap, shredded

2 cups borax

2 cups arm & hammer laundry powder.

about 20-30 drops of essential oil (optional)

Put 6 cups of water in a large pot on the stove to heat. While water is heating, shred the fels-nappa soap. Some people use their food processors, I just do it by hand. Add the shredded fels-nappa soap to the pot of water that you have been heating on the stove. 

Stir constantly until soap melts. Don't let it boil over. Once fels-naptha is melted, turn off the heat and add the 2 cups of borax and 2 cups of washing soda. Mix until everything is dissolved. This step requires a bit of patients, but everything does eventually dissolve. 

While making the soap today, I was careful to measure out everything... to make it easier in the future to skip the a few steps in the original recipe that I linked above.

Recipe should make 9 cups of sauce. Pour sauce from pan, after it has cooled a little, into a large glass bowl. Pour 4 cups of water on top of the laundry mixture in the bowl. Cover bowl with a lid. Let mix sit overnight or at least 8 hours. Using this method you need a bowl with the capacity to hold 14-15 cups. This 12+ cup bowl was EXACTLY the right size... (First time I have used my fancy mother's day mixer and it was AWESOME!)

After sitting for 8 hours, remove lid and cut up the mixture. It will be gelled and separated like this.

Cut the gelled mixture into cubes to make it easier to blend. 

Blend it up. Add essential oils. I would probably add about 30-40 drops of DoTerra's lemon or on-guard... On-guard would be my first choice, but lemon is cheaper and a great germ killer and stain buster.

Always use high quality oils. I'm using the oils for their cleansing/ disinfecting properties, not for their scent.

Also, the whole reason I make laundry detergent is to help eliminate harmful chemicals from my home... so be careful not to just load your sauce up with chemicals from an inferior perfume just to get the benefit of a pretty smell. Use wool laundry balls in your dryer with a few drops of high quality EOs if a pretty smell matters to you. In the end, I don't think the scent from the EOs in the laundry sauce necessarily transfers to the clothes.

Finally,  pour finished laundry sauce into glass containers with lids. This batch fit perfectly into 4 glass quart size jars. Also, the dark green plastic canning doo-hicky on top of the glass jar in the above photo is such a mess saver. Before using it I had laundry soap all over my kitchen... Such a mess before... This thing is awesome. I got it at Ace Hardware near their canning stuff ... so worth the $2 investment.  

You will use 1 Tablespoon of sauce per load. I do at least a load of laundry a day, and a batch usually lasts me between 1-2 months.




Here is a quick recipe reference for yous.

INGREDIENTS: 

Water (6 cups, and then 4 cups)

2 bars (5oz ea) fels-naptha soap, shredded

2 cups borax

2 cups arm & hammer laundry powder.

about 20-30 drops of essential oil (optional)

SUPPLIES:

cheese grater (or food processor)

large pot

long stirring spoon

large bowl (15 cup capacity) with tight fitting lid - - (use glass if you will be adding EOs)

electric hand held or stand alone mixer

4 quart size glass jars. (Jars to hold 1 gallon or 128 fluid ounces or laundry sauce... don't necessarily need to be quart size)

METHOD:

1. Heat 6 cups of water in large pot

2. grate or shred 2 bars of fels-naptha soap

3. Slowly stir grated fels-naptha soap into 6 cups of heated water.

4. Stir with long spoon until soap has melted into heated water. Be careful not to boil, it might overflow

5. Turn down heat, or off altogether and add 2 cups of laundry powder and 2 cups of borax. Stir until everything is dissolved

6. Let mixture cool for a bit on stove... just enough so your glass bowl doesn't shatter. 

7. top glass bowl with a lid and let it sit 8 or more hours. 

8. After 8 hours the mixture will have gelled and separated a little. Cut the mixture and mix it a bit with a rubber spatula.

9. With a mixer, mix until everything is well combined. If you choose to whip it, your laundry sauce will have more volume and be fluffier. 

10. Add about 30 drops of essential oils during the mixing process

11. divide sauce into glass jars with lids

12. Use about 1 tablespoon of sauce to 1 load of laundry. (Confession, I usually use 2 tablespoons for a large load, but that is probably excessive).

13. If you are like me and your wet laundry sits a little too long in the washing machine, just Use wool dryer balls with a few drops of DoTerra's purify essential oil in the dryer. It is amazing... Purify totally pulls that stale laundry smell out of your clothes. Here is a DIY wool dryer ball post. Dryer balls also cut down on drying time and replace the need for chemical laden dryer sheets. 

Happy chemical free living.