Like the commercial says - the most expensive bottled water is...

If you watch TV as much as I do, you might have noticed a commercial talking about how nearly all laundry detergents are watered down. Now the point of the commercial is that their brand is more concentrated - the moral that we should learn is that making your own soap is cheap and easy.

I want to say that I love being frugal but if something takes forever I'm less likely to do it. I will think, "Hey! That's a great idea," but won't actually follow through. I can handle making laundry soap.

We already bought those big containers of liquid laundry detergent - so we kept the last one after it was empty. There are lots of specific recipes and ideas that are helpful when you are just starting out, this site and this site are good starting points.

This is roughly the way we do it:
To make the process easier we have a glass container that always has a bar of soap sitting in water. It will slowly dissolve on its own so if we need to make dish or laundry soap on the run it comes together a lot easier.

The soap making ingredients are a bar of soap, washing soda (can find it in most grocery stores), borax and water. We do about 1/4 bar of soap, 4+ quarts of warm water, 1/2 of washing soda and 1/2 cup of borax. That's it. If everything isn't dissolving as it should, I but the glass jar in pot - creating a double boiler. I only heat the water enough so everything will be warm, not actually boiling. Pour it a container and use 1/2 cup or so per load of clothes.

This is what we have been using for about a year. It is a lot cheaper, and the clothes are cleaning up well. What more could you ask for?