DIY liquid laundry detergent

In an attempt to be more frugal, and having to be careful what detergent I use because some of us have super sensitive skin, I decided to give The Duggar Family recipe for liquid laundry soap.  It didn't take very long, and was really cheap.

Here's what I used:
1 bar of Kirk's Natural Castile Soap(it was in a 3-pack with the hand soap at Publix)
1/2 cup of Borax(in the laundry aisle at Publix)
1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (laundry aisle at Publix)
4 cups water
Pot
1 5-gallon Homer Bucket at Home Depot (<$5.00)
Giant Paint Stirrer from Home Depot
Grater
Funnel
Empty Laundry Detergent Bottles

 

grate up the bar of soap - it took me 10 minutes, and I took a couple of breaks to rest my muscles.

 

dump the grated soap into 4 cups of water(they started with hot, I used cold)

heat up the soap and water until it's bubbly and the soap has dissolved - took about 6 minutes.

measure the washing soda and borax.

somewhere there's a picture of the bucket half-full of hot water(was easy to do in the tub)

do that ^ and mix the dry ingredients into the water that's in the bucket.

now combine the two solutions

and stir (he was feeling pretty awesome).

stirring silly is more fun. obviously.

then seal up the bucket overnight - apparently it thickens up while it cools.  I didn't notice much of a difference.

 feeling pretty good about conquering the combining ingredients part.

here's the solution about 18 hours later.  you need to stir it up again.  a lot.

I scooped out the solution with a measuring cup and added it to my(mostly) empty bottles through a funnel.  I made a pretty fantastic mess.

you're supposed to fill the bottle 1/2 full, but I went about 3/4.  we're raising boys, here.  fill the bottles the rest of the way with water (careful - I had a lot of spillage once I tried to put the caps on).
shake, shake, shake before use!

the over-crowded counter crowd.  I also managed to top off two other bottles and have some left in the bucket!

believe it or not, those clothes are actually clean, and I managed to get in there to do a load of laundry with my new soap!  I'm satisfied so far.  We'll see how this goes...