DIY Laundry Soap

Sometimes there are pins out there that just work great for most people...and then the Pinterest Pixies decide they hate you and you get to be the unfortunate soul they are spitting upon. Poor Jolene ran into the wrath of the Pinterest Pixies as she was trying to save her family a little money by making her own Laundry soap. 

The Original Pin

http://beingcreativetokeepmysanity.blogspot.com/2010/11/homemade-laundry-soap.html 

Now this pin has some really great reviews in the comments; it does work for many people. We're not saying this is a bad pin at all...we're just saying the Pixies had it in for Jolene.  Here's her story:

The Pinstrosity

Jolene says, "Sorry I have no pictures of our unfortunate incident but I'm sure this story is appropriate regardless." 

"One day I decided to save myself some money by making the laundry soap mentioned above.  My husband and I purchased all the ingredients, mixed it all up in a huge bucket and thought to ourselves that should save us a few dollars.  Boy, were we ever wrong... The soap cleans well, however... about 2 weeks after we started using the detergent our plumbing backed up so we called a plumber who ran a snake down the drain and cleared it at the cost of $265, a few days later it backed up again, then again and again, and again... You get the point. We eventually bought our own auger at the cost of $375. This happened so many times I am sure I could quite comfortably take any job with any masterplumber and I know I would be a proficient employee, not that I have any aspirations to do so.  Finally we called another plumber who ran a camera down the drain (another $175) which showed a build up of white gritty material that he initially thought was grease but upon closer inspection was determined to be the homemade laundry soap...$815 later... I still have almost a full tub of this laundry soap that nobody wants."

The problem here is the laundry soap not dissolving all the way (obviously, or it wouldn't be clogging the plumbing). Not everyone is getting clogged pipes, so we know it works somewhere where the Pixies aren't mad. 

Sifting through the comments people said that at first they were worried that they didn't add enough soap because this laundry soap didn't produce suds like they thought. This won't produce suds...it just doesn't. If you put in too much soap it can have a hard time dissolving thoroughly. Because this laundry soap is more concentrated that the normal stuff you buy in the store, you don't have to use anywhere near as much. 

The author of the original post and some of the comments suggest double grating the soap and/or using a food processor after the initial grating to get a finer mix. This will help the soap to dissolve better. 

And then sometimes washers just get old and have an incontinence problem and they just can't hold everything in like they used to. 

So when you're trying out all of these marvelous DIY soaps and detergents...do take them with a grain of salt and remember to set out a peace offering to the Pinterest Pixies. Obviously some DIY soaps work for someone, but they may not work for everyone and with every contraption/machine.