Home Made Soap Thread

ponykilr

Guest
We have made our own laundry soap for years. It is only about $3-4 for 5 gallons. No telling how much money it has saved me.

I have recently become interested in making bar soap from scratch using lard, olive oil and lye.

I buy bar soap from Anders at the Farmer's Market (he is a friend) and love it. No commercial soap for me in a long time now.

I need a digital scale that will weigh up to 3lbs or so as ingredients must be weighed precisely, so a trip to Walmart tomorrow to hopefully find one.

Anyway, I will post how it goes after this weekend. May end up being a side business, women at my wife's office will eat it up LOL.
 
....

There is a 172oz jug of All Free and Clear in the laundry room right now that's almost empty. A jug costs $13. We bought this one before Robert was born. He'll be two and a half here soon.

Three kids, cloth diapers, and we aren't shy about washing something after its been worn once.

Are you just using too much detergent?
 
Hm, curious about this deal of making your own detergent.
Just did some back-of-the-envelope math...
We buy the little pods, in bulk, come out to ~0.20 per load. And thats w/o any major work to get them really cheap.
I'd guess we average 4 loads per week, so thats 80 cents. In a year...a whopping $40. Lets say $50.

I have no idea how many 5 gallon buckets of DIY that would correspond to, lets say 2, at $8. Is it worth $42 a year for the effort?
Its almost worth that much to me just for my kids to be able to load and run the laundry themselves w/o making a huge mess.
 
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shawn said:
....

There is a 172oz jug of All Free and Clear in the laundry room right now that's almost empty. A jug costs $13. We bought this one before Robert was born. He'll be two and a half here soon.

Three kids, cloth diapers, and we aren't shy about washing something after its been worn once.

Are you just using too much detergent?
Click to expand...

Where do you get that?
 
Not detergent, but I started making my own deoderant when I was living out west. Seemed like the California thing to do. Immediately noticed how much better it feels. Hard to explain. I still don't know how well it'll hold up to a good southeastern summer.
 
Dave beat me to it.

The jug says you're supposed to fill the cup to like the second line. But ninety percent of the time, we'll fill it to about halfway to one. If you put in much more than that, you have to rub the rinse cycle again to get all the soap out.

This is with a twelve year old super jumbo old school Roper. YMMV.

And, like I said... Cloth diapers. So it literally gets shit clean.
 
This is the basic recipe, takes about 10 minutes. We use Fels Naptha bar from WM instead of the zote, I have never see zote.

It smells clean, get clothes very clean and is just another way we stay basic and save money.

We use 1/4 - 1/2 cup per load.

Shawn, you are saying a jug of less than 1.5 gallon detergent has lasted 2.5 years? Wow is all I can say.
We wash at least a couple of loads a day here and will use up a batch in 4-6 months.
 
Cool thread. I'm also interested in the deodorant recipe. I've never really found a commercial deodorant that isn't irritating by the time I get to the end of the stick.
 
ponykilr said:
Shawn, you are saying a jug of less than 1.5 gallon detergent has lasted 2.5 years? Wow is all I can say.
We wash at least a couple of loads a day here and will use up a batch in 4-6 months.
Click to expand...

A couple of loads every day?
Like 14+ runs a week?
Does your washer only hold like 2 sets of clothes or are you doing laundry for a whole Somali village?

... at that rate I'd wager your savings on soap are a drop in the bucket compared to your energy costs
 
My wife is a craft head and made soap and chap-stick a few weeks ago for her first time. I thought her chap-stick was kinda neat. She melted actual bees wax from local honey I bought with cone in. Also added some eucalyptus oil that made my lips tingle.:burnout:. Debated on using it for other purposes. :smokin:

She loves to save $ so I will definitely be informing her of the laundry detergent. Especially since she has to run my play clothes twice.
 
RatLabGuy said:
A couple of loads every day?
Like 14+ runs a week?
Does your washer only hold like 2 sets of clothes or are you doing laundry for a whole Somali village?

... at that rate I'd wager your savings on soap are a drop in the bucket compared to your energy costs
Click to expand...

Towels, sheets, clothes and all washed separately.


If 172oz jug lasted 2.5 years (and is still not empty), even using 1oz per load(way too little) that is only washing 1 load every like 4 days.
 
RatLabGuy said:
A couple of loads every day?
Like 14+ runs a week?
Does your washer only hold like 2 sets of clothes or are you doing laundry for a whole Somali village?

... at that rate I'd wager your savings on soap are a drop in the bucket compared to your energy costs
Click to expand...

We run a couple of loads a day at my house too. I have two boys who can dirty up clothes like nobody's business. And I normally do the same. Between my work clothes for my day job(which I don't need washed every day, but still), my exercise clothes, and the clothes I wear in the shop at night I change clothes 3-4 times a day. My wife is a saint. Our laundry is like 95% me and the boys and 5% her stuff. So yes, probably more than a Somali village. :lol:
 
FrontPorchFab said:
Cool thread. I'm also interested in the deodorant recipe. I've never really found a commercial deodorant that isn't irritating by the time I get to the end of the stick.
Click to expand...
This is a recipe similar to what I used.
http://becomingpeculiar.com/homemade-summer-deodorant-that-wont-melt-in-your-cupboard/
The key ingredient that a lot of recipes leave out is the beeswax. Acts as a hardening agent. Its not really super cheap to make but it works well.
What I figured out is most irritating about commercial deoderants is the use of propylene glycol (key ingredient in antifreeze).
 
Blaze said:
We run a couple of loads a day at my house too. I have two boys who can dirty up clothes like nobody's business. And I normally do the same. Between my work clothes for my day job(which I don't need washed every day, but still), my exercise clothes, and the clothes I wear in the shop at night I change clothes 3-4 times a day. My wife is a saint. Our laundry is like 95% me and the boys and 5% her stuff. So yes, probably more than a Somali village. :lol:
Click to expand...

Wow. So I have kids too, basically unless they are rolling around in the dirt and are so filthy it's going to be getting the furniture dirty, they don't change clothes. And they go in the hamper to get washed. Although actually my son wears his pants 2 days before going in the hamper. Of course they are small, so all their clothes don't take up too much space. My pants - always worn 2 days before washing, unless they get a visible spot on them. Dressy pants that are only worn occasionally...probably 3,4 times. My "garage clothes" - e.g. grungy pants - yeah I just keep putting them on dirty too, they get washed after 3+ uses or when they are filthy. In the shop actually I have a mechanics cover-all I slip on, those get washed when they are really funky too.
I can see where going to the gym and washing those as an extra set every day would add up.

But basically the rule here is, we wash stuff when its dirty, not just b/c its been worn. Dealing w/ laundry comes at a cost (mostly time).
 
RatLabGuy said:
Wow. So I have kids too, basically unless they are rolling around in the dirt and are so filthy it's going to be getting the furniture dirty, they don't change clothes. And they go in the hamper to get washed. Although actually my son wears his pants 2 days before going in the hamper. Of course they are small, so all their clothes don't take up too much space. My pants - always worn 2 days before washing, unless they get a visible spot on them. Dressy pants that are only worn occasionally...probably 3,4 times. My "garage clothes" - e.g. grungy pants - yeah I just keep putting them on dirty too, they get washed after 3+ uses or when they are filthy. In the shop actually I have a mechanics cover-all I slip on, those get washed when they are really funky too.
I can see where going to the gym and washing those as an extra set every day would add up.

But basically the rule here is, we wash stuff when its dirty, not just b/c its been worn. Dealing w/ laundry comes at a cost (mostly time).
Click to expand...

We are pretty much the same, except my boys pretty much do roll around in the dirt all day so their clothes are funky and nasty. Shop clothes in the winter last me a couple of days unless I spill something nasty on them. In the summer I am lucky to get two days because I sweat like a...well.....a yankee in the south. :lol:
 
I'm with Dave. Kids are little, definitely get dirty with spilled food and, well, dirt, but we only change clothes if we are going somewhere and they aren't presentable or if they are soaked/filthy. I probably wash 3-4 loads per week, plus diaper loads. I only ever fill the cup to halfway up to the "1." If something is dirtier than that, I add Borax or Clorox or Vinegar (no, not all together). I don't use fabric softener and I reuse dryer sheets several times... I think that stuff makes your clothes dirtier faster and not last as long.
 
My wife has a sheet fetish too. Sheets are changed every other day. She says she would change them every day if I wouldn't kid her about it.

Deodorant might be something I check out too.

Back to the bar soap, I am trying to decide on a fragrance. I am thinking about coffee.
 
I really like making soap. It is a bit science, a bit art and a bit fun. Cold process soap is pretty easy to make. I do cold, hot and "warm" which is my own take on soaping. It simply means it is cooked at low temp until about the same consistency as oatmeal or pudding but not the same degree as hot process or crockpot soap. I find this gives shorter cure time but is less time consuming and is also really forgiving.

links:
my favorite lye calc
http://www.brambleberry.com/pages/Lye-Calculator.aspx

A good page on the process
http://frugalandthriving.com.au/2014/more-for-your-moneypork-shoulder-part-five-old-fashioned-homemade-lard-soap/

I have never used a crockpot, but it might be a good way.
http://www.diynatural.com/crock-pot-soap/

One of the best soap videos



 
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