Homemade Laundry Detergent ...

[hellosailor]

No doubt the chemistry research would be enlightening, but over the years I've bought and tried a number of detergents "one on one" to see if one or another got my clothing cleaner, or worked better on particular stains. As I said, you don't need the most expensive to get things "clean" but LT is among the best at a variety of tasks, I've seen it get out dirt and stains that others just didn't.

If you want fun, try to get out a pomegrante juice stain after it has been heat set. No fair using chlorine bleach, but good luck with anything else.

[S/V Blondie-Dog]

Originally Posted by callmecrazy

I make a similar soap, without the water, in 2qt batches. still working on first batch after 4 months of 1 load a week, occasionally 2 loads. $20 of material is well over a years supply of soap

Powdered soap is indeed the preferred way to go if on a boat and microwaving the bar of soap, as suggested in one of the comments, does seem to make this whole effort rather easy.

"FYI - If you are using Ivory soap - the easiest way to make powdered soap - put the bar of soap in the microwave for 1 minute and then take out the "glob" and place in a large bowl and place the remaining "core" back in the microwace for an additional minute and repeat - once cooled crushed in your hands and it will make a finr powder - you might want to do this outside and wear a mask - but it is the easiest way to make the powder."

[callmecrazy]

Just grating the soap works well. It desolves in water when you do your washing... so creating a fine powder or anything like that doesn't really help the purpose of it.

I'll just add, this soap is, at the very minimum, as effective as any basic off-the-shelf laundry powders. Minus the smellgood stuff... I've been using it for around 2 years now, and the only time I need extra cleaning power is to get stains out and occasionally whiten the whites. Which, in my experience, is exactly the same as store bought soaps. You can also add smellgoods and softeners as you wish (and there are organic methods of both)

It's not meant to compete with high-tech, high-priced soaps. If that's your thing, you probably won't like it.

[capeshore]

How about just some baking soda and some water? Not sure about it going overboard after? It just raises PH a little..but I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do especially docked/coastal. Just an out loud thought.

[JanetGroene]

I know a woman who had great luck with the net bag/over-the-rail method when she had twins in diapers. That's a lot of diapers and it worked great. Does the homemade Fels Naphtha soap work in salt water? Cold water? Please explain how much to use, hot or cold and how much rinsing it takes to get it out. It sounds good but....

[callmecrazy]

Originally Posted by JanetGroene

I know a woman who had great luck with the net bag/over-the-rail method when she had twins in diapers. That's a lot of diapers and it worked great. Does the homemade Fels Naphtha soap work in salt water? Cold water? Please explain how much to use, hot or cold and how much rinsing it takes to get it out. It sounds good but....

I've never used it in Salt water. But I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work. The notion that certain soaps don't work in salt water is a bit strange in my mind to begin with... This particular soap does not create suds in fresh water, so it won't have them in salt water either.

Otherwise, it works just like any other soap. I've never had an issue with residual soap after a rinse in a regular washing machine. I probably use about 4 tablespoons per load (because I've been programmed for so many years to use those big heaping cups of regular detergent), but the average instructions say to use 1-2 Tablespoons.

There's 64 tablespoons in a 32oz container. And 52 weeks in a year Some people might not like this soap, but others will, either way, you won't know until you try it

Here's the same recipe different website.