Make Your Own Laundry Soap

I made my own laundry detergent.
It's not that I really spend exorbitant amounts of money on laundry soap.  But I happened upon a recipe, and it sounded sort of interesting, and if it worked, laundry soap would be really super cheap.  So why not give it a try?

So here's the recipe:
1 bar of soap (they recommend one without dyes or perfumes, but I used Ir*sh Spring, which has both, and it turned out fine)
1c Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda  (Not to be confused with Baking Soda.  They are not the same, despite the fact they sell huge boxes of Baking Soda in the laundry department)
1/2c Borax

Grate the soap.  Dissolve it in a medium size sauce pan of water, over medium heat, stirring frequently.  Fill a 5 gallon bucket about half way with hot tap water.  Add the melted soap, Borax, and Washing Soda.  Stir it til dissolved.  Then fill the bucket the rest of the way up with more hot tap water.  Let it sit for 24 hours, so saponification can occur.  The next day it's this crazy consistency like slimy firm jello.  Stir that up so it's a big bucket of slimy goo.  You can add essential oils for smelling wonderful if you please  (I didn't, on account of the Ir*sh Spring and all.   And also the fact that I don't know what an essential oil is.)  and then put it in some sort of dispensing container (I used an empty laundry detergent container, leftover from my former life as someone who buys premade laundry detergent) diluted 50/50 with water.  You need to give it a little shake before you use it every time, because it sort of chunks up again while it sits (I usually forget this, and it hasn't been a big deal).  Use 1/4 cup for front loading washers, and 5/8 cup in top loading washers.  (I'm probably a little generous with it.  After all, I have 10 gallons worth, and enough ingredients for about 40 or 50 more gallons, so why not be generous?)

It seems to work fine.  Even using Ir*sh Spring, the smell isn't strong.

I didn't take pictures of the process, (seriously, grating and cooking soap is sort of fun in a bizarre way) but I have pictures of my finished bucket of goo.

Chunky at the top.  

You can see where I poked it with my stir stick.

I don't know if that helps you see the texture or not at all.

Here it's "sliced" into pieces.

And here's it a nice slimey goo, ready to be scooped into the jug.

Hooray.