DIY liquid laundry detergent

[lucille]

I have been reading up on how to make your own laundry detergent. I remember a few people mentioning they were doing this. Our clothes already seem to get quite a beating, even though we have switched to Method brand concentrated soap. It was even worse using whatever regular brands we had tried.

Clothes come out faded, stiff if you don't dry them in the dryer. So I'm not sure if this is the high level of sediment in our water and the ton of chlorine they put in it.

So if you have tried the DIY laundry soap did it save on your clothes at all? Does it get stains out well enough? What bar soap did you use as the starting base? I dislike the odor in most typical store brand bar soap as being too overpowering. Is it deminished when you use it in the laundry soap?

[Milehimama]

Almost every recipe I've seen calls for Fels Naptha soap. I've seen ONE for Ivory soap.

I don't use it, but this link might be helpful:
http://www.tammysrecipes.com/node/2158

She has lots of troubleshooting links in her post.

[Tightwad]

That is so strange! I literally just mixed up a batch of laundry detergent in my kitchen this afternoon! Fels Naptha is petroleum based these days, so I used Ivory. You can use just about any soap in the recipe. If you don't like the smell of store soap, you may want to try goat or saponified. It will be more expensive, but you know it will be totally natural and you can get it unscented.

[lucille]

Originally Posted by Tightwad

That is so strange! I literally just mixed up a batch of laundry detergent in my kitchen this afternoon! Fels Naptha is petroleum based these days, so I used Ivory. You can use just about any soap in the recipe. If you don't like the smell of store soap, you may want to try goat or saponified. It will be more expensive, but you know it will be totally natural and you can get it unscented.

What about olive oil based bar soap or castile bars? Is this your first batch or have you used it before. I am really curious to find out how it stacks up against commericial soap in getting your clothes clean and how they turn out. We have lots of dark colored laundry and it fades so fast.