Keep Colorado Springs Green!

I heard about this recipe about 6 months ago and had to try it for myself. I was reading an article about the Duggar family. You know, the ones with 18 bazillion kids? I figured if they said it worked, it must be good. I have one son still at home. He brings home lots of dirty sports clothes so I thought it would be a good test.

I am happy to report that this soap, no matter how crazy people think I am, works! I had to get past the initial creepy feeling that the Tide people put in my head but then I was fine. For many years their slick marketing convinced me that they were the only way. The ingredients in regular detergent are surprising! The reason the cost has gone up so much is that products like Tide are made with petroleum products. Yuk! I don’t want that stuff on my skin! Even if you don’t care about your skin do you care about your water supply? Colorado Springs has the best tasting water in the world. I don’t want that to change!

The recipe or this laundry soap is so simple. The first thing to do is to save back a couple of old liquid detergent bottles. I can fit a batch of soap into two or three old Tide bottles. The follow the recipe below.

Hot water
1/2 cup Washing Soda
1/2 cup Borax
1/4 bar Soap (grated)

• In a large pot, heat 3 pints of water. Add the grated bar soap and stir until melted. Then add the washing soda and borax. Stir until powder is dissolved, then remove from heat.
• In a 2 gallon clean pail, pour 1 quart of hot water and add the heated soap mixture. Top pail with cold water and stir well.
• Use 1/2 cup per load, stirring soap before each use (will gel).

The soap will gel overnight and look like a thickened version of egg-drop soup from your local Chinese restaurant. You can store it in a covered bucket or just use the old bottles that I mentioned above.

The best thing about making and using this soap is the cost! With all of the ingredients, I will spend less than $10 per year to wash clothes! I was spending so much more on Tide at the commissary!  I plan to use the savings on fun things like manicures and pedicures. This new found cash will be put to very good use!

Keeping our city green is very important to me. Don’t get me wrong, I am a very conservative person who strongly dislikes Al Gore and his claims about Global Warming, I mean Climate Change. Remember, he said he invented the internet and that was false. I have no desire to follow him. I do have a desire to keep my drinking water clean and safe. I do have a big desire to save money. This little recipe fills those squares for me. Laugh if you want to but it has been working great for me and my family. Try it!