Home Made Laundry Detergent (Brick)!

Co-Conspirator Jess and I finally got to have our first Homesteading Date this weekend. We successfully completed two DIY greeny projects, and we're excited to share them with you.

We'll start with Home Made Laundry Detergent!

So convinced were we of this fool-proof recipe that we made a triple batch.  Here's the recipe, via everyone's favorite vegan super-crunchy blogger, Bonzai Aphrodite.

Single Batch (we tripled these amounts)
1 1/4 cups vinegar
1 cup baking soda
1 cup washing soda
1 cup borax
1/4 cup liquid castile soap

Vinegar + sodas and borax

You have to start with the vinegar, then add the baking soda, washing soda, and borax. The mixture will fizz and foam (yay!). We found it valuable to have one person continually stirring (Jess), while one person measured and poured (me).

Once you have that mixture fizzing and spitting away, add the castile soap. We used Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap, peppermint scent. Not because we like our clothes to smell like Certs, but because we both had a bottle in this scent. Probably because that's the one they have most often at Trader Joe's. We added about 20 drops of lavender essential oil to the mixture to cut the very sharp scent of the castile soap. The mint scent wasn't unpleasant, just strong. The lavender had a nice mellowing effect.

This stuff really is magical.

AugDog came by to supervise the science experiment. He got bored quickly when he realized we didn't have anything that he could eat.

Once you've stirred in all your ingredients, you have completed about 1/3 of the necessary elbow grease. This recipe requires A LOT of stirring. Stop stirring, Bonsai warned, and you'll end up with a rock-hard brick of soap. So we stirred. And then stirred some more.
As you stir, the mixture will start to take on a sort of cakey appearance and texture. KEEP STIRRING!  We kept stirring until the soap easily formed a nice little cohesive clump of detergent in my hand when I scooped it out.

It looked like this when we stopped.

We split up our glorious home-made all-natural laundry soap and I took my portion home in a plastic storage container. I was sooooo excited to try it out.

And then I tried to scoop some out to do a load of laundry last night. And discovered that I had not a jaunty container of DIY laundry soap goodness, but a laundry soap brick.

Chisel or scoop?

I think it is still usable, I'll just have to break it up before use. Not ideal. I emailed Jess about the brick situation, and she said that her soap was still soft and cakey!  So maybe my soap just ended up baking in our hothothot apartment? Who knows. I'll try it out with some actual laundry and let you know how what happens.
Jess, any words of wisdom to share with the blogosphere?

Stay tuned for our escapades in home-made natural deodorant!