More fun than detergent ought to be

I mixed up a new batch of laundry detergent today, since we were almost completely out and our post-Oktoberfest laundry is mountainous, as in there is a mountain of it.

BTW, I'll confess here that in the last (pre-Oktoberfest) month, I've discovered that going commando is actually surprisingly comfortable. Seriously, I might do it more often.

But I digress. Detergent. Right.

The recipe I have for dry laundry detergent (thank you to my good friend Barry!) calls for…well, here it is:

Small Batch Dry Laundry Detergent

• 1 lb Borax (19 oz)
• 1 lb baking soda
• 1/4 box (14 oz) washing soda
• 3/4 bar of Fels-Naptha or 1/4 bar Zote soap, grated or chopped fine
• 14 oz of OxyClean

Mix all together. Use 1-2 Tablespoons per load.

I happened to have both Zote and Fels-Naptha soaps, since the first time I made this I wasn't sure which one I wanted to use. So I grated up the Zote, which is pink, and the Fels-Naptha, which is gold, and put it all in the food processor with the OxyClean, which contains little blue granules. The result has a kind of Funfetti look to it.

Making laundry time more fun than it should be!

While I've got you, here's a liquid version that works nicely, too:

      1/4 of a bar of soap (Ivory, Dr. Bronner's, Fels-Naptha, Kirk's Castile, Zote

              or another other non-beauty, lotion-free brand)

      1/4 cup of washing soda

      1/8 cup of Borax

      1 cup, plus 1 gallon of warm water

      3–10 drops of essential oil, if desired

      Use all metal utensils for this!

      Grate soap into 1 cup of warm water. Heat until the soap is dissolved; set aside. Put the gallon of warm water in a bucket with a lid. Stir in borax and washing soda. When they're dissolved, add the melted soap. Mix (plunge the pan the soap was in up and down a few times). Add the essential oil, if you're using it. Cover and allow to sit overnight.

      The next day, the mixture should be thickened and gelatinous. Use a metal spoon to stir and break up and any big lumps.

      Use 1 cup (or up to maximum level in your dispenser) per load.

Thanks to the fabulous Foodie With Family blog for that one. You can read her eloquent explanation of why one would want to make their own laundry soap. My explanation is less eloquent: Rich and I both prefer unscented laundry products. (Well, actually, he does, and after a hundred years of marriage, I've come over to the dark side, too.) But I had more and more trouble finding a detergent that was unscented and also actually worked.

After using brand after unscented brand that only kind of got our clothes clean, I spent a little time (and more than a little money) buying detergent with scents I didn't mind. The last time, I was washing a load and realized that I noticed the perfume about ten feet from the laundry room door. Nuh-uh. That doesn't work for me. Back to the brands that have no scent but don't work very well.

And then I came across these recipes. I thought, "Well, if I'm going to use a detergent that only kind of works, I might as well pay 4¢ a load instead of 16¢.

The delightful news is that they work well. Really, quite well. I'm still experimenting with the different recipes, and I'm sure I'll eventually decide which one is my favorite. But for now, I'm making both liquid and dry versions, and testing them against each other. For what it's worth, I use a food processor for the dry version and clean up is remarkably easy!

Plus there's the festive, Funfetti look. I ask you, what commercial brand offers that?