's Liquid Laundry Soap-long

March 10, 1999

and everyone,

I've taken some of the info I gathered from a couple of books and a

couple of soaplists and devised my own method...I use a 1:4 ratio of

soap to water/vinegar. I approach it like a rebatch, grind it up or cut

it into small chunks/scraps. I've used plain soap, lye-heavy soap,

superfatted soap, smelly soap with EO and/or FO, and soap with herbs

(but don't like that-the herbs float in the machine and stick to

clothes, I would suggest straining out any herbs), with a variety of

different fats/oils and with and without colorings. So, I think just

about any soap will work. I weigh the soap scraps - say I have 16 oz.

Put that into a LARGE stock pot. Then I figure out how much water I

need: 16 X 4=64 so, I use 64 oz. of water/vinegar. Usually for this

large amount, I'd use 2 cups (16 oz) of vinegar. If you have less than

a pound of soap, use about 8 oz. So, I subtract 16 from 64 (the total

amount of liquid you need to use) to get 48 oz of water and 16 oz of

vinegar. I pour that over the soap in the stock pot and let it simmer

for 2-3 hours, until the soap is melted. When it's cooled to about

100-120* F, I funnel it into a gallon jug (usually a recycled distilled

water jug). I've found that if I don't add the vinegar to the laundry

soap, it turns into a snotty mess or it starts to separate. With the

vinegar, it stays very liquidy and pourable, even when left on a cool

floor.

I use 1 1/2 cups per load of laundry - put in before it is filled with

water or clothes. I let the machine fill to halfway, let the agitator

run for a few seconds or until I get some foam, then add the clothes. I

don't use Downy anymore and the clothes are still soft (although I

occasionally use a dryer sheet for static).

I don't sell this, I just use it on my own clothes. Let me know if you

try this and it how works for you.

HTH,

P.S. I found that I have such hard water that just dumping soap flakes

into the machine doesn't work well. It may work in soft water.

>Please let me know how you make laundry soap out of failed batches.

>Do you have to do anything special to it or just dump a clump into the

>laundry. Is it ok if the soap has eo of fo in it or colour. How much

>should

>you use??? I would love to know how to recycle a failure batch of soap.

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