Sweet Pea Special

Sweet Pea spent a few wonderful days with my Mother this week and had quite a few adventures.  From making tea cakes to laundry soap.....yep!  Laundry soap!  Since she is 10 years old now and quite the word smith like her Daddy, I asked her to be my latest guest blogger.  I don't recommend using this on cloth diapers because using Borax can void your warranties.  I also don't know how well it would work or if it would build up.  I know some mom's swear by homemade detergent for cloth diapers, but I've never tried it.  I was very impressed that she enjoyed working with her Grandparents and wanted to share with you all!

Here is the recipe and what you need:

4 lbs of borax
4 lbs washing soda
4 lbs baking soda
3 bars of soap (like a laundering soap like Fels Naptha or a Castile soap like Kirk's Castile)


So, here is Sweet Pea, letting you all know how to make your very own homemade laundry soap.


Hello!  I'm Sweet Pea.  I was visiting my Grandma and Grandpa this summer and we wanted to make soap. So, my Grandpa found us this gigantic metal bowl about the size of my arms connected.  My Grandma bought everything that we needed.  The borax that we used was a little old and it was chunky.  We got out a grinder and used that to grind up the gigantic chunks.  It was really fun, but it was really hard.  So Grandpa helped me by using his hands over the grinder so we wouldn't breathe in the dust, because borax dust can hurt you.  He held the grinder and I turned it to break up the borax chunks.

After that, we started to grind up the laundry soap.  First thing you have to do is microwave it for 30 seconds to a minute to make it soft to grind up.  After we microwaved it, we cut the bars of soap into smaller chunks so it would be easier to grind.  The soap was harder to grind than the borax.  The soap came out in little flaky pieces.  It's OK if they come out in big flakes too.

After we ground the soap, we mixed it into the borax.  Then we added the baking soda and the washing soda.  Then we mixed it all up so everything was even.  We used a big wooden spoon, but that got hard to do.  So my Grandma got out a ladle and we would scoop it from the bottom to mix it into the top.

We took 4 one gallon ziplock bags and filled them 3/4 of the way up.  Then we sealed them.  My Grandma got sand pails and shovels.  She keeps 2 bags in each pail.  It's really funny that she uses the sand pails for her laundry soap.  Smart...but funny.

When you use your soap, (this is for making it into a liquid for HE machines) you take 1 tablespoon of detergent and mix it with one cup of water.

Then we had to wash our hands really well because we didn't want to get borax on our snacks when we were done.

I had a lot of fun getting the chance to make soap with my family and the ones that I love.