Easy recipe
Make Laundry Soap
This laundry soap recipe makes an excellent laundry soap, without:
- the plastic bottle
- displacing water
- harmful ingredients or any detergents
- and most of all, without micro plastics, otherwise known as PVA (polyvinyl alcohol) or PVOC (polyvinyl chloride).
You can immediately begin your water conservation efforts and stop putting micro plastics in the water supply. You will join in putting an end to micro plastics silently polluting all of the waterways, eventually ending up in the food chain.
There are many DIY (do it yourself) laundry soap recipes out there. They require a lot of effort to make, resulting in a less than perfect, homemade laundry soap, that doesn't clean as well as you would like, but you use it anyway because it's better than detergent. I know about this, because I made an imperfect homemade laundry soap recipe and used it for years.
Hidden microplastics
Where PVA is hidden in cleaning products
- Laundry detergent sheets
- Laundry detergent strips
- Laundry detergent pods
- Dissolving fabric softener sheets and strips
- Dishwasher pods
- Hand soap pods
- Hand soap sheets
- Body wash sheets
- Toilet cleaner pods
- Toilet cleaner sheets
- All-purpose cleaner pods
- All-purpose cleaner sheets
- Dishwasher cleaner pods
- Washing machine cleaner pods
My laundry soap journey
History
Here's a little of my laundry soap recipe history:
Ithaca Soap's organic coconut oil based liquid Castile soap was packaged in plastic bottles for 15 years. I was never a fan of plastic bottles, but I loved our liquid soap. Over the years, I brainstormed, researched, and made crazy plastic substitute prototypes, to see if we could sell our liquid soap without the bottle. Glass was out of the question because of breakage and ship weight issues.
One day it dawned on me to make the Instant Liquid Soap. It is the same liquid Castile soap, only packaged dry. You dilute it in the compostable package, and decant it into your own soap dispenser.
Now, the laundry soap recipe is easy to make, has an unlimited shelf life, works well in your home washing machine or in a laundromat industrial machine, giving you consistently clean clothes that smell great and feel soft. This homemade laundry soap recipe is dry and concentrated, and you put a small scoop in your washing machine. Make laundry soap at home like a pro.
what's the difference
Laundry soap vs. detergent
Laundry soap vs detergent is like organic filet mignon vs a fast food hamburger. One is a premium cut of meat with a lot of nutrition and the other is a food like substance.
It's like that with laundry soap vs detergent.
Laundry Soap
Laundry soap is an old fashioned lye and oil soap, specifically formulated for textiles. The formula opens the fibers, lifts out all of the excess oils, dirt and grime, and then closes the cleaned fibers back up. Like other natural soaps, laundry soap, will biodegrade as it is flushed through your washing machine and back into the water supply, through your septic or sewer. Since the fibers are not broken down, I almost never have to clean out my washing machine's filters. The lint filter gets cleaned maybe every 3-5 years. The fibers stay intact and most of my clothes last a life time. Andy is much harder on his clothes. His work tee shirts last forever. His pants get worn out faster, but they still last quite a few years.
Detergent
Detergent is a soap like substance, to make the user think it's soap. Laundry detergent is a combination of foaming surfactant powders and or liquids, creating a cleaning solution that breaks down your fibers, along with the breakdown of excess dirt and debris. The broken down fibers (natural and synthetic), along with the chemical surfactants, make their way into your washing machine's filters, eventually making their way into the water supply. This clutters up septics and sewers, adding to the overwhelming overload of micro plastics polluting all waterways on the way to the oceans.
Make your own laundry soap
Laundry Soap Recipe
For the best results, use Ithaca Soap's Instant Liquid Soap. Click the link to get some. This recipe is not difficult. It is simply a precise formulation.
Collect all of the ingredients and tools before getting started.
- Laundry Soap Recipe Ingredients:
- 1 bag of Instant Liquid soap
- 1.5 oz. (42g) washing soda (aka soda ash)
- 8 oz. (228 g) citric acid
Directions
Tools and directions
Tools:
- 1 dry container. You can use anything. Yogurt containers, glass jars. Whatever you have. I keep a small plastic scoop in it.
- Plastic or rubber gloves
- goggles (I prefer them, but you don't need them)
- 2 butter knives or a pastry knife
- A large mixing bowl.
Laundry Soap Recipe Directions:
Combine all of the ingredients with the 2 butter knives or pastry knife as if you were creaming butter and flour. Do this until the mixture is uniform. Place in your storage containers and cover to keep out moisture. Store in a dry dark place. There is no expiration date.
Use Instructions
How to use natural laundry soap
How to use this laundry soap:
I have a small front loader washing machine and use between 1/2 of my small scoop, which is about 1 1/2 baking tablespoons, to a whole scoop of this laundry soap recipe, depending on the load of laundry.
For a small load of very dirty clothes or a full load of delicates, I use 1/2 a scoop of laundry soap.
For a loose full load of very dirty clothes or a packed full load of other laundry laundry, I use a full scoop or laundry soap.
I load the laundry into the machine and put the laundry soap in its drawer. Whatever kind of clothes washing machine, load it with your dirty clothes, put the laundry soap in the soap place, pick your water temperature and fabric setting and go.
I never use a dryer. I don't own one, even in the water rich, humid and sometimes damp, Northeast USA. I hang my clothes outside for most of the year. In the Winter, I have fabulous clothes drying racks.