soap | Happy Hodgepodge Home

For those of you who haven’t tried it…making your own laundry soap may sound difficult, messy, or just too complex to mess around with to make it worth the money you save. I promise you, it’s really not that hard. And you don’t need a lot of hard to find ingredients.

All you need is a bar of hard soap (remember whatever scent your soap is will be the scent of your detergent), 1 box of baking soda (that’s right…baking soda!), and (optional) 1 cup Borax powder.

You will also need a grater and a medium saucepan. Or you could use my sister’s method, which involves wrapping the soap in a towel and pounding it with a hammer. I prefer the grater because the soap flakes end up more uniform in size.

Here’s my soap all grated.

Put just enough water over the soap flakes to cover them. Melt the soap over medium heat, stirring frequently.

Fill a large stockpot or bucket with about 2 gallons of hot water. Pour melted soap into the hot water and stir well.

Stir entire box of baking soda into soapy water and stir.

If you want, you can stir about a cup of Borax in.

This will just about fill three large laundry soap containers. Be sure to shake it before using…the contents will gel a bit after settling.

The benefits?

First of all cost:

I bought a 3 pack of hypoallergenic Dial from the Dollar tree. I only used one bar of soap so it cost about .33 cents.

Baking soda cost about .60 cents (you can use generic which is cheaper…about .40 cents)

One cup Borax approx. .70 cents (that’s figuring high)

Total cost $1.63 for approximately 168 loads of laundry!

Another benefit is that it is hypoallergenic. If you have family members with soap allergies, this is the perfect, thrifty solution.

The soap may look different than the store bought brands, but it cleans very well You can use it in standard and HE washers as it doesn’t make a lot of suds.

This soap is more eco-friendly because it does not contain the harmful toxins that store bought soaps usually have.

I hope this makes the idea of making your own detergent less complicated, and hopefully answered some of your questions. If you have any more questions about making your own laundry soap feel free to ask!

Linking up here:

Doesn’t everyone want to be pampered a little? Don’t we all want every room in our home to be a place we can relax and unwind in?

Up until recently my bathroom had been sorely overlooked. I mean, it looked OK…it was functional and nothing I was ashamed of, but I felt like it could be better. So I marched into the bathroom and put all the toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, brushes…you know, all the functional, everyday items into the closet (of course, that meant a little re-organizing).

I realized that I don’t have to spend a fortune to get a little luxury for my bathroom.

First, I looked through what I already owned. It’s amazing the things that sit in your house everyday, unnoticed and unused, isn’t it?

I found these:

I inherited the bell-shaped bottle from my grandmother and found the other one when we moved in. If you don’t have anything like this you can usually find them at thrift stores.

Candles are great! They look good just about anywhere and they are cheap and easy to find.

I think interesting soaps are great for decorating in a bathroom!

Hand made soaps in an old Mason jar.

Or interesting store-bought soaps in a wide mouth vase.

This particular soap is a Chinese brand called Bee & Flower. They are very inexpensive and are sold in most Asian markets.

I found some nice cork-lid jars at Goodwill for .50 cents each and filled them with interesting textures. Bath salts in one, seashells in the other. I wrapped them in twine to add to the texture.