I've been seeing ways to make laundry detergent for a long time, and just never got around to making any. I finally accumulated the last few ingredients I needed for this recipe from How Does She? (minus the scent crystals) and then sat on it all for a few more days before mixing it all up! some days I'm just not up for extra projects.
I had baked the baking soda to make washing soda back when I made pretzels, so grating the Zote was the next most time consuming part. great arm workout, though. I can't imagine if I'd made the full recipe with two bars of Zote! this would have been a 2 day project so I could rest up after the first bar was grated ;)
the Zote smells pretty good, kinda lemon-y, but I can't really tell that there's a scent after the clothes have been washed, which is fine. I couldn't find the white bar so I went with pink, and after I got the pink I found the white. way it goes! so next batch I'll use the white in case the pink tints our clothes, as was suggested by someone else online. I haven't noticed anything turning pink, but I'd rather be safe than sorry with a house of non-pink-wearers.
it made quite a lot more detergent than I was expecting (this is a 8QT mixing bowl!), so halving the recipe worked out fine, but I had to go find a larger container to hold it all so I didn't have a bunch of smaller containers full of detergent on top of the washer.
what I really like is I hardly have to use any at all so it should last a while before I need to make more.
