I'm Going Granola

Don't ask me what got me going on doing this...maybe it was saving money or maybe it was knowing that commercial laundry soap is hard on clothes and the environment but seeing homemade laundry soap on Pinterest peaked my interest so I decided to try it.  I ordered all the ingredients I didn't have (which was everything except baking soda) from Amazon for about $30.

I started with the pink Zote Soap.  Two bars.  I let them sit out for most of the day and then first used the grater attachment on m food processor.  Then tossed the shreds in with the blade and chopped them up even more.  This is kind of messy since the soap is a little sticky but it smelled good.

 I dumped it all in my stock pot thinking it would be big enough.  It wasn't.  I ended up using two of them by the time I added all the ingredients.

The borax was a little clumpy.  I felt compelled to break them up before mixing.

The Oxi-Clean (I always thought it was Oxy with a Y...) and baking soda went in next.

Next I split the ingredients into the two pans and added the Purex Crystals.  The pan on the left has them mixed in.  The pan on the right has them just dumped on top.

The whole process took longer than I expected - probably an hour by the time I cleaned up all my messes.  Next time I'd layer the ingredients into the two pans to  make it easier to mix.  That was a big mistake.  It was very hard to mix and having the sticky soap on the bottom didn't help.

I can say the stuff works well and smells good too.  You only need about 2-3 tablespoons per load and it's good for HE front load washers too.  I refilled the Purex bottle with about 1/4 of the batch and the lid makes for handy measuring cup.  The rest I put in ziplock bags. Now to see how long it lasts!!