Recycled oil laundry soap! (Tree hugging post)

Hey all, tree-hugger here! This weekend my hubby wanted some home made fry-bread (kinda like a donut with cinnamon and sugar). We don't own a deep fryer, so I hate frying because it always seemed to be a waste of oil...yes fried food is certainly tasty...anyway, I told him if we made fry-bread then I would get to try making HP soap for the first time with the left over oil, and he agreed! So, I used a mix of both soybean and canola oil to fry with because I ran out of soybean...so I only plugged canola oil into soap calc for my recipe.

I used:
80% used once oil-(but clean-!!)
20% coconut oil
and superfatted at 1% because I don't want extra oil in my laundry soap, but I didn't want to risk it being lye heavy.

It took a while to trace because of the soft oils (am I right about that?) and it cooked well in my crock pot. Glopped nicely into my mold and I just unmolded it and shredded it all to dry out! I can't wait for it to dry up so I can process it into a powder and mix with borax, washing soda, and (generic) Oxyclean!

I've made my own laundry powder before and love how economical it is, and that it's low sudsing for my HE washer.

What is your favorite laundry recipe? So far I use equal parts borax, soap, and washing soda, and throw in a scoop of Oxy clean with each wash. Followed by a vinegar rinse in the fabric softener cycle.

Oh, and I do dry in my dryer until my hang-able items are almost dry to help get out the wrinkles. I also throw in a ball of aluminum foil to reduce static. Can't wait for warmer days to dry outside in the sunshine!

I love laundry powder, it's the only actual soap I've made so far, lol.

I use :

1 bar of plain soap like castille or bastille. I don't like laundry bars, they smell funny.
1 cup each of borax and washing powder
1/2 cup baking soda
3 scoops of generic oxyclean.

This makes enough to fill a quart or so jar, and it smells soooo clean. I will admit the generic oxyclean is a bit too candy smelling for my liking, but my overall formula seems to work well. The washer and my clothes are cleaner then ever!

I love the idea of recycling cooking oils, definitely going to try rendering my fryer oil next time I change it! Currently, I use 100% lard soap with 0% superfat:
8oz fresh soap shreds
1/4 cup borax
1/4 cup washing soda
Mix it up with a gallon of water. About 1/4 - 1/2 cup per load in my HE machine. Works great, even on cloth diapers (there's the ultimate test lol yuck but they come out clean! ) and so economical!

Second Impression said:

I love the idea of recycling cooking oils, definitely going to try rendering my fryer oil next time I change it! Currently, I use 100% lard soap with 0% superfat:
8oz fresh soap shreds
1/4 cup borax
1/4 cup washing soda
Mix it up with a gallon of water. About 1/4 - 1/2 cup per load in my HE machine. Works great, even on cloth diapers (there's the ultimate test lol yuck but they come out clean! ) and so economical!

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Does it get all lumpy and gel like? Thats why I prefer powder over liquid home made.

lizflowers42 said:

Does it get all lumpy and gel like? Thats why I prefer powder over liquid home made.

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Oh yes, but nothing a good shake of the jug can't cure. My machine's owner's manual specifically recommends against powders, apparently my machine isn't designed to dissolve them or something. Haven't experimented but the gloopy gel works well enough.

Thanks for starting a great thread!

DH actually does the laundry, I make the soap. He is the one who figured out how much of what to add to the soap. This means the clothes are clean and smell good too (notice the baking soda). He is very picky and experimented a bit to come up with this:

Large load: 1 cup liquid soap, 1/3 cup borax. 1/3 cup washing soda, 1/6 cup baking soda, enough vinegar to fill softener compartment in your machine.

The liquid soap I make for laundry and dishes is 50% recycled either soy or peanut oils (I prefer peanut so far) and the other 50% is new coconut oil. I filter the water but do not use distilled since it is utility I don't care if it is cloudy. I use the Failor method and neutralize using either citric acid or borax. I have used as much as 80% recycled soft oils, but we settled on 50% since coconut oil has more cleansing power. The 50:50 liquid soap is also thinner and easier to dispense.

The vinegar is important. It works well for the clothes and the garden. We use the laundry rinse water to water some trees, as you know soap is alkaline so the vinegar brings it back to neutral or a little acidic. Better for the trees. So far so good.

Hmm...now I am a tad concerned that there isn't enough "cleansing" to my recipe of 80% used canola/soy 20% clean coconut oil. I'm still going to use it obviously because I can't throw away a thing!

How about automatic dishwasher soaps? Anyone? We run our dishwasher about 2 times a week, full to the brim, rather than hand wash dishes daily. I would love to come up with and automatic dishwasher soap as well.

Just for you Liz-Dishwasher soap: 1 cup Washing soda, 1 cup Borax, 1/2 cup citric acid food grade or double for hard water(or 2 packs unsweetened lemon koolaid, or 4 packs for hard water), 1/2 cup Kosher salt(course). Mix well. Put in plastic container and store in the fridge. Use 1 tablespoon per load. Use vinegar in your jet dry receptical(or lemon juice).

In the wash I put vinegar in my downy ball. Downy balls work by cintrifical force and "break" open at the end of the spin. The rinse water is what distributes the softener. Vinegar in this case. You can also just add it to the wash water, no need to add seperately really.

2lilboots said:

Just for you Liz-Dishwasher soap: 1 cup Washing soda, 1 cup Borax, 1/2 cup citric acid food grade or double for hard water(or 2 packs unsweetened lemon koolaid, or 4 packs for hard water), 1/2 cup Kosher salt(course). Mix well. Put in plastic container and store in the fridge. Use 1 tablespoon per load. Use vinegar in your jet dry receptical(or lemon juice).

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I'm going to try this! I did a recipe that was a dry mix and it just clumped and turned hard in the container-perhaps the refridgerating part is what I was missing out on?

melstan775 said:

In the wash I put vinegar in my downy ball. Downy balls work by cintrifical force and "break" open at the end of the spin. The rinse water is what distributes the softener. Vinegar in this case. You can also just add it to the wash water, no need to add seperately really.

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Luckily, I can just put it into the fabric softener spot in my washing machine, so there's no need to stop Thanks for the info on those things though, I never understood how it worked

lizflowers42 said:

Hmm...now I am a tad concerned that there isn't enough "cleansing" to my recipe of 80% used canola/soy 20% clean coconut oil. I'm still going to use it obviously because I can't throw away a thing!

How about automatic dishwasher soaps? Anyone? We run our dishwasher about 2 times a week, full to the brim, rather than hand wash dishes daily. I would love to come up with and automatic dishwasher soap as well.

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Not to worry, just use a little more.

On my next liquid soaping day I am planning on making separate dish (just regular hand washing dish soap) and laundry batches. The laundry one will have even more coconut, the one for dishes will be around 75:25 recycled soft oil:coconut. It is counter intuitive, but liquid soap with more CO is thinner. So 50:50 is rather thin and runs trough my dish scrubbing pad. Dish soap with 75% recycled oils

DH made an automatic dishwasher mix but he did not like it. 2lilboots kindly gave her recipe, I will give that one a try.

green soap said:

Not to worry, just use a little more.

On my next liquid soaping day I am planning on making separate dish (just regular hand washing dish soap) and laundry batches. The laundry one will have even more coconut, the one for dishes will be around 75:25 recycled soft oil:coconut. It is counter intuitive, but liquid soap with more CO is thinner. So 50:50 is rather thin and runs trough my dish scrubbing pad. Dish soap with 75% recycled oils

DH made an automatic dishwasher mix but he did not like it. 2lilboots kindly gave her recipe, I will give that one a try.

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you can't! She said it was just for me!!!!:razz:

I have a couple of favorites for laundry. One is 100% lard CP bars that I grate with a box grater then run through the food processor. I mix that powder with borax and washing soda (I finally settled on equal amounts of all 3 - read lots of different opinions about 1 cup of this, 1/2 cup of that, 1.5 cups of this - finally just did the easy thing). My washer was made around 1980 I'm guessing so it's not really particular about suds or no suds, powder or whatever. The other laundry soap I made that I really like is a recipe I found here on the forum way, way over in a post from like 2009. I think it was Soapmaker Man who posted it. It's sort of a modified CP recipe but you end up with a whipped soap type consistency, kind of like whipped butter.

Ok, so I put it to the test this weekend. Most everything came out smelling clean, except a throw blanket that my dogs sleep on. It came out smelling like grease! Soooo I am washing it again with 2 scoops of my above recipe plus oxyclean. It's 100% acrylic yarn (something that someone, some time ago crocheted, it's nice and worn and soft and the dogs love to burrow in it), so I wonder if just the type of fabric plus maybe the dogs natural body oil caused the greasy scent?

melstan775 said:

1 bar of plain soap like castille or bastille. I don't like laundry bars, they smell funny.
1 cup each of borax and washing powder
1/2 cup baking soda
3 scoops of generic oxyclean.

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you do the same thing that I do! but I add 2x the amount of baking soda, Ive been looking into making my own OxyClean.

I've been using abut 5 oz bar of 100% lard soap w/0 SF, 1 cup borax, 1 cup washing soda and about 1 1/4 gal water. I didn't grate the bar, just chunked it up and put in the pot of water on the stove and stirred and cooked until it was dissolved then added the borax and soda. After I put it in a pail I decided to add some backing soda since I always toss some into the washer anyway, so stirred that in. I think I will use the coconut soap next time for my bar, I like that idea and DH is super picky about how laundry. I use home-made oxi-kleen with the colors and for whites toss in equal parts bleach and dishwasher detergent and let them sit in HOT water. I want to find something other than the dishwasher detergent, but haven't done much experimenting yet. I too put the vinegar in the downy ball. I don't use any thing in the dryer since starting with the homemade soap, I haven't had the static like I had before.

I haven't found a homemade dishwasher soap yet that I like. They seem to leave a film on the dishes that I then have to hand wash to get off - defeats the purpose. I've tried the borax/washing soda/kosher salt and citric acid and had the same results - we run a water softener because we have rock hard water. If anyone else has ideas I am open to trying them.

I use a laundry bar. CO @ 70%, PO 20% and RBO 10% with zero superfat. Now trying to do a liquid version.

I don't know how to use the baking soda though I have a pack at home. I don't get castille powder or such in my place.

Kansas Farm Girl said:

I haven't found a homemade dishwasher soap yet that I like. They seem to leave a film on the dishes that I then have to hand wash to get off - defeats the purpose. I've tried the borax/washing soda/kosher salt and citric acid and had the same results - we run a water softener because we have rock hard water. If anyone else has ideas I am open to trying them.

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Most of what I am reading is due to the lack of phosphates that cause the film. have you tried putting vinegar into your rinse aide cycle?