Review of the Dugger's laundry detergent

Check out my blog called Homemade Laundry Detergent story for the recipe and let me know how it works for you! :)

My first adventure with making laundry detergent started with a lot of research on different recipes and me desiding that if it worked for a HUGE family like the Dugger's it should work for me. Plus it was SUPER cheap! After making my batch and letting it sit overnight I basically had a mixture of what still looked like water and floating on top was what had gelled up and I couldn't get it to mix well at all with the broom handle that I used so I went to Home Depot and bought a paint mixer drill bit for my drill and used it to mix the detergent and it helped ALOT! It then turned into what looked like a lotion mixture when it was stirred up. I halved it and added hot tap water to fill the buckets back up, making 10 gallons. Then we filled all the cleaned empty detergent containers that we had saved up. 1 gain detergent container that has the spout on it, 4 48-50 load Arm & Hammer/Gain containers, and 2 32 load gain containers. The rest we left in the buckets until we were ready to refill a container. Ok so now to discuss how well it cleans... I say for most of mine and my boyfriends laundry it did pretty well. I washed mostly in warm cycles or atleast started it as a warm load and then turned it to cold after the bottom of the basin was filled up to the rim of the agitator, and I used 2 cap full (gain spout detergent container top...its about 1/4 c and is smaller than a top on the 32-50 load detergents.) in a large load, a cup and 1/2 in a medium load, and 1 cap in a small load.  However, for my almost 3 year old daughters and my boyfriend's son's clothes it wouldn't get the stains out, so I would use a homemade pretreater (Hydrogen Peroxide and Blue Dawn mixed in a spray bottle) and it got most of it out, however for a really tough stain like markers or dye, ect. I would have to go back to my trusty Gain. I have only used it a few times though since I made this laundry.
I also would like to note that this does not have any additives that will help keep your whites white so if you are going to use it you may want to look into getting some bluer or maybe you could find an optical brightener, because your white will begin to look dingy over time!
Overall, I think for the price it is defiantly worth a shot! I love in a hard water area and because the borax works as a water softener it does pretty well w/out having to use Calogen.

**Note: This is not safe for cloth diapers, because of possible repealing issues, especially if using pocket diapers and/or microfiber. This is because of the bar of Fels Nap soap used. Also because of the borax, it can cause wear on the PUL and the elastic in the diapers as well; however, some people do use this and report no problems. So its your call, but I'm not risking it!

Our experince with cloth!

I am just going to start out by saying I love cloth diapers!! :) However when I found out I was pregnant cloth was the furthest thing from my mind! Infact I remember saying how gross that I thought they would be and never give them a second thought. When Anna was born I swore I would only use pampers. HA! So much for that they gave her horrible rashes so I swapped to huggies! Well they were ok, but we still had way to many rashes so I swapped to Luvs and just slathered her with diaper creams and hoped for the best! Well when she was 16 months old I started finding out how great people though cloth was and really finding out about them online and that is when I desided that I wanted to try them out!  My first order was a couple of Sunbabies off a swap and have  never looked back since I got them! :) I have several types now and I like them all! Ok I know your asking how did I handle the poop? Well at first I was dumping the poop in the toliet and then rinsing in the tub and santitzing later, but I wond up getting a sprayer off the dog isle in the local grocery store that hooks up to the shower head and is plenty long enough to reach over the toliet. So I just spray them off and put them in the diaper pail! Now my daughter is 35 months old and daytime and naptime potty trained and only wears a diaper to bed! Which I thought would pose a problem with washing, since I was used to washing big loads of diapers and since she is only wearing 1 diaper a day. It took a little bit, but I got it figured out! I simply put the diapers in a large wet bag with a zipper so they don't smell up my house and wash them about ever 6-7 days! I try to remember to rinse them off in the tub when I take them off in the morning, but I don't always have time, but that has seemed to be okay even after almost a year of being potty trained! :) When I wash I simply shake out the inserts in the washing machine and fill with warm or Hot water on medium level (I don't have an HE washer!) and let it run through a rinse cycle, then do a hot/cold medium level wash (there is not hot/hot or hot/warm on my washer) with 1/4 cap full of Arm and Hammer Free laundry detergent and 1/2 cap full of Calogen water softener. Then I do a large load hot/cold wash cycle w/ no detergent to make sure the diapers are rinsed well! Then I hang them up on my indoor 5 line clothes line to dry! I have had an AMAZING experience with them using mostly pocket diaper stuffed with microfiber inserts. I do have some cotton flats and hemp babies that I love as well! I have only stripped my diapers maybe two or 3 times ever and a couple of those times is because we moved and have harder water here where we live and we needed a good water softener. So 1 year and 9 months later I would defiantly recommend using microfiber with pockets! :)

My HOMEMADE Laundry detergent Story!

I have made my own liquid laundry soap twice! Today was my second adventure and I used a different recipe b/c I don't think the last that I tried got my clothes really clean especially since I halved it and made 10 gallons. (see my review called Dugger's Laundry Detergent Review) The first recipe I used was the following:

1 Fels Nap bar of soap
1 Cup Borax
1/2 Cup of washing soda (note: NOT BAKING SODA!!)
1 Cheese grater
2 5 gallon buckets with lids
LOTS of water! ;)
and I bought a paint stirring drill bit to mix it up good. :) 

First I grated the bar of fels nap up and then I found the biggest pot I have and put 4 cups of water in it and started it to boil, then added the fels nap that I graded up into it and let it simmer stirring A LOT until it was dissolved completely. 
Then I filled the 1st 5 gallon bucket up w/ hot tap water about half way and added the borax and washing soda and stirred until it dissolved. Then I added the melted fels nap and water mixture to it and filled the bucket up the rest of the way with HOT water and stirred it. At this point I was using the end of my broom to stir. I then put the top on and let it sit over night.
After sitting all night I removed the top to a separated mixture that I couldn't get mixed up with  my broom handle so we went and bought a paint stirrer for my drill and it got it mixed up good without me having to touch it. :) 
Then I poured half of the mixture into my other 5 gallon bucket and filled both buckets back up with HOT tap water. Whala 10 gallons of laundry detergent just like Michelle Dugger uses! 
I don't feel like this did the trick to get all my clothes really clean so I twicked my recipe a bit today!

Here is what I did today:

1 bar of White Zote soap (.97 at Walmart...same price as Fels Nap, but a MUCH larger bar that is actually made for washing clothes and has optical brightener in it!!)
2 Cups Washing Soda (1/4 per bucket after separating)*once again NOT baking soda!
2 1/2 Cups Borax (1/4 per bucket after separating)
cheese grater
2 5 gallon buckets
LOTS of water
paint stirrer 
whisk

I started the same as before by grading my bar of soap and adding it in a large pot of boiling water and let it simmer until it was melted. (I feel like it took longer to melt then te fels nap because it clumped on me when I stirred it in the water....the soap is much softer than the fels nap)  
While it was melting I filled my bucket up w/ BOILING HOT water about half full. I also boiled another 4 cups of water and mixed in my dry ingredients with a whisk in it after I took it off the stove. 
Then after I took the melted Zote and water mixture of the stove I poured the dry ingredient and water mixture in with it. I used a whisk and stirred it until it was mixed well, before adding it to my bucket of VERY HOT water. 
After I poured the mixture in the 5 gallon bucket that was filled half way already with BOILING water I added HOT TAP water and filled it most of the way up. Then, I got out my drill with my paint stirrer attached and mixed it well! I am going to let it cool down before I put the top on it. So a few hours maybe till about 4-5 this afternoon as I made it about 10:30 am. Then I will let it sit until about lunch tomorrow before I mix it again and separate it into the other 5 gallon bucket with HOT water like I done before. I will then let that mixture in both buckets sit overnight before adding it to my old laundry detergent containers that I cleaned up. :)
UPDATE: I just checked my laundry soap and it is very gelled on the top! So I am going to mix it and separate into my other 5 gallon bucket! :) I mixed my detergent up very well w/ my paint stirrer on my drill and poured 1/2 into my other 5 gallon bucket and added boiling water to fill each bucket back up. I also added about 1/4 c of borax and 1/4 c of washing soda to some of the water that I boiled for each bucket. I then used my paint stirrer to mix both buckets very well and am letting them cool before putting the lid back on them like I did yesterday. So tomorrow afternoon I will mix each bucket again and it will be ready to use!! I will do a review later for this new recipe, so check back in a few weeks for it! It will be titled 10 gallon Zote Laundry Detergent Review! Happy Cleaning!!!!


***NOTE: I made the other batch in mid January of this year and I still have 1 large gain container that has the press button on it full as well as 3 48-50 load containers full and 2 32 load containers full. I just made more because my 2 5 gallon buckets are empty and I had the time! I'm sure I have enough of the old to last a few more months! :)

ALSO NOTE: I use 1 cap full per medium load and 1 and 1/2- 2 caps for large loads to make sure I get my cloths clean! I live in a remotely hard water area so that may be part of it!

I do NOT use this on my cloth diapers as I hear it causes them to repeal and since I use microfiber in my pocket diapers I don't want to risk it!! I either use Arm & Hammer Free with a half a cap full of calogen on them or a powder detergent mixture that I made. (I don't use it very often for fear of the borax messing up my diapers elastic and PUL) However if you would like the recipe to try it is as follows:

1 part Oxyclean (SUN brand NOT the Oxyclean brand!)
2 parts borax
1 part Washing soda
*Just mix with a spoon! I use old Oxyclean buckets to put it in! and use 1 scoopful per load! (I use the scoop that come in the Oxyclean.

I will UPDATE tomorrow afternoon with a picture of how it turned out this time! :) and later I will review the new recipe! :) Happy Laundry!

Props to justalittlenutty.com for the picture! :)