Friday, December 30, 2011

A fun science experiment and homemade laundry soap

Have I ever posted about homemade laundry soap before? Am I too lazy to go looking for that post? Yeah...

Before we get into that, I was 5 years old the other day.

I saw a fun post on Pinterest and had to try it. IMMEDIATLY.

Firstly, it involved Ivory soap. This got my attention because I love all things Cincinnati. Because Ivory Soap is made there. Right in the same hood as Pringles & the fat substitute Olestra. Rock on, Nati.
I thought I remembered Ivory being sold in at least 3 packs. I also thought you could buy most bar soaps singularly. To be honest, I've been using body wash since about 1995, so I've never bought regular bars of soap in my adult life, and so 10 bars of Ivory it is...Really?...10 bars? Is it just the Brooklyn Target? Whatever, It'll get used eventually.

Cut the bar into cubes and place on a microwave safe plate.

Put it in the microwave. Yeah, I said the microwave.

wuuuhhhh? WOW! Put it on high for about 90 seconds and what that shit blow up! It turns into soap soufflé! And I didn't hurt my microwave! And it smells soapy fresh! And it's still usable!

Gaze at it in wonderment.

 Squeeze
 It's like what you thought Heaven was like as a child.
 To be honest, it feels a little like dried paper pulp.
The weirdest texture ever.

And now you need something to do with it. You could put it in the shower or on the bathroom sink and break little chunks off as you need them. Or something else.

 Dump the soap soufflĂ© into a bucket lined with a trash bag.
 Crumble it into little bits.
 Add a half pound box of baking soda.
 And half of a tub of oxi clean.
 A box of washing soda.
 A box of borax.
 And mix it all together.
 Ta da!
It makes a lot. Use a 1/4 cup for a small load, 1/3 cup for medium load, 1/2 cup for large load.

Normally, you're supposed to use Fels-Naptha or Zote soap here, because of their detergent qualities. I haven't been able to find those here in Brooklyn yet, so I've been buying $3.99 bars of Dr. Bronner's bar soaps. Even though I love the fragrance of them ( a combination of the citrus & almond scented ones is my fave) I have to say that .23 cents for a bar of Ivory ( which I'll have for a while now) is going to win the wallet.

I hope you've enjoyed! If you try this, let me know!

2 comments:

  1. I want to try, but we don't own a microwave. Thinking of trying to put it in the oven and see what occurs!

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  2. Ummmmm NEATO... I've seen lots of people doing this on facebook, but didn't know exactly how. NEAT!

    ReplyDelete