Yesterday the kids were enjoying this summer weather outside – not only with cool water from the sprinkler and shooting each other with water guns, but, in the muddy holes in the backyard. We’re fortunate to have two of these homemade pits ’cause when you have boys’ well… you have to have holes in the yard, right?
I’m pretty sure I remember saying something to the effect – “don’t get muddy”.
It must have fallen on deaf ears. After I turned off the water valve indoors and the hose outdoors I came outside to find the boys’ pouring dirty muddy water on each other. Because it was thundering and about to storm they had to come in. I marched them all to the tub and sprayed them down.
Oh, you should have seen my tub.
Their dirty clothes sat in the hamper for probably two hours at least. I was going to just wash them with my other laundry so I started the washer up and put a half cup of my homemade laundry soap in the water and added just their three shorts and two pairs of underwear and the water looked like THAT ^ (pic above).
Upon seeing that I was NOT adding anything else into the wash. I washed these filthy things once (no rinse cycle) and then washed them a second time with towels and whatever else I threw in there. I did use whole cup of homemade laundry detergent on the second wash which had the added towels, etc..
I’m pleased to say the clothes came out marvelously!
My recipe can be found here. The only “main” thing I did differently in this batch of one 5 gallon container of concentrate was add extra of the super washing soda and borax. You’ll see what I mean if you go to check out my diy laundry soap recipe. Adding the extra dry ingredients made my batch VERY gelled/concentrated. I didn’t know that would happen but it will last longer as I will just add more water to dilute when I mix the concentrate into my smaller bottles.
I love this recipe – it’s so affordable. I estimate it may only cost on average about $5-$10 a year to make depending on how much you use. I made my first batch in September of last year and my second batch just earlier this month I think. But, I was also sharing it with a family of two for a while. Some of the ingredients , if only bought for this recipe, will last possibly two or more years because you only use about a cup of so per 5 gallon bucket of concentrate.
Homemade laundry soap is awesome! And, if you’re looking for a way to work from home you might want to consider starting your own laundry service. This soap would make part of your overhead very low and you could work right out of your own home.
You might also want to read:
- See my past posts on working from home (I featured a bunch of women and their businesses too).
