If you are friends with me on Facebook, about once a month you see the laundry soap thing on my status. I do make my own laundry soap but let's just say it comes with it's own set of challenges. For one, I have dirty little boys in my house. And a dirty big boy too. Lots of dirt and grease on the pants...and the soap recipe that I started out with did just fine at removing said stains. Right on! But after a week or so I was headed to the gym with freshly washed workout clothes that stunk to high heaven. And I didn't notice until I got to the gym and put them on. Oh. My. WORD. Ok, that is a challenge that needs to be addressed immediately. So after fiddling a bit I adapted the amounts of ingredients and it seemed to do the trick. Thank the heavens. But I still wasn't getting that "Fresh washed" smell and the Hubs was starting to mention that he missed the smell of the bought stuff. Here's the thing...we can afford to buy laundry soap. It's not a big deal. But I save where I can and that was one area I thought just because you can doesn't mean you should. Buy it I mean. We were spending $240 a year on laundry soap. That does not include stain removers, fabric softener or any other laundry type accessories. After I discovered the homemade stuff that figure plummeted to about $20 a year. Then I had to adapt the amounts for the stink factor and it climbed to about $40 a year. So that is a savings of $200. Sigh. What to do? I did break down and buy a bottle of soap and fabric softener to conduct several small experiments.
A) Do you really get as many loads as it says on the bottle?
B) How much do you actually have to use to get stuff clean and smelling great?
C) Could I continue to use my homemade stuff and just augment the smell factor with a tablespoon of fabric softener to make the Hubs happy?
D) How much would it jack up the laundry money to do C? How many loads in a bottle of Gain fabric softener?
B has been going well...you actually need very little to get the suds going, get stuff clean and have it coming out smelling great. I am filling it to just below the 1st line in the cup, the one they say to use for small loads. Well, I do a huge load and that still does the trick. And C is actually already confirmed. I had a few loads of homemade soap left when I got all the store bought stuff so YES, I can augment the smell with the softener while still getting my clothes clean with the homemade soap. So with Sharpie marker in hand I will keep track of how many loads I actually get out of each bottle and will report back in a future Frugal Friday. Don't forget to save a few pennies and use that sunshine to dry your clothes! And then you even get a bit of free exercise when it starts to rain {in the sunshine} and you have to dash outside and rip everything off the line in record time. Don't ask how I know this...let's just say the neighbours got a bit of free entertainment. :0)
B) How much do you actually have to use to get stuff clean and smelling great?
C) Could I continue to use my homemade stuff and just augment the smell factor with a tablespoon of fabric softener to make the Hubs happy?
D) How much would it jack up the laundry money to do C? How many loads in a bottle of Gain fabric softener?
B has been going well...you actually need very little to get the suds going, get stuff clean and have it coming out smelling great. I am filling it to just below the 1st line in the cup, the one they say to use for small loads. Well, I do a huge load and that still does the trick. And C is actually already confirmed. I had a few loads of homemade soap left when I got all the store bought stuff so YES, I can augment the smell with the softener while still getting my clothes clean with the homemade soap. So with Sharpie marker in hand I will keep track of how many loads I actually get out of each bottle and will report back in a future Frugal Friday. Don't forget to save a few pennies and use that sunshine to dry your clothes! And then you even get a bit of free exercise when it starts to rain {in the sunshine} and you have to dash outside and rip everything off the line in record time. Don't ask how I know this...let's just say the neighbours got a bit of free entertainment. :0)
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