Liquid Laundry Detergent

You will need:
1 bar Ivory, Castille, or Fels-Naptha soap
1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
1/2 - 1 cup Borax
Water
5 gallon bucket
1-10 gallon size container(s) with lids

Everything can be purchased at Walmart which also happens to have the lowest cost I have found on each of the ingredients. Walmart sell the Fels-Naptha soap for less than $1, and it is easily over $1 ON SALE elsewhere.

Directions:

1. Grate the bar of soap. This can be done by hand (ugh) or with a food processor (yipee).
2. Melt the grated soap on the stove over medit um heat until all pieces are dissolved.
3. Fill the 5 gallon bucket half full with water. This can be done while the soap is dissolving.
4. Add 1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda and 1/2 - 1 cup Borax to the bucket of water. Stir until dissolved. **I use1 cup because I found I had to pretreat more than I like with only 1/2 cup, but I really don't like to pretreat. Also, if you like to see suds, use 1 cup. However, remember it is the soap, not the suds that clean, so it is not necessary. Please adjust to your own likes and needs.
5. Add the dissolved soap to the bucket. Stir.
6. Fill the remainder of the bucket with water.
7. Let sit over night. It will gel. This is the concentrate.
8. The next day (or whatever day you get back to it)... OPTIONAL: add 15-30 drops of essential to smell. Stir well. I use a long paint stirring stick.
9. In your gallon size container, mix 1/2 water and 1/2 liquid detergent concentrate. I go ahead and separate out all of my detergent, but you can do this on an as-needed basis.
10. Use 1/4-1/2 cup for HE washers, and 1/2-1 cup for top load washers.

The last time I did the math on this, it was about $0.20 cents a gallon. At that time I was spending more on ingredients, but using less Borax. Still when is the last time you spent $1 on 10 GALLONS of detergent?!!! AND it only takes about 20 minutes to make the concentrate INCLUDING cleaning the mess.