Old Fashioned Laundry

I love to wash my laundry with real soap. Detergent is made with petroleum products, but soap is made with fat (vegetable or animal) and other simple ingredients. Soap does not break down the fibers of cloth as quickly as detergent, so when you use it to wash your laundry, clothing lasts longer. It also makes the clothing come out of the wash much softer. And it smells nice, especially when you let the laundry dry in a sunny breeze outdoors. It is especially nice to wash cotton clothing with soap. Try it, I think you will be pleased!

One used to be able to buy laundry soap at the supermarket, sold in boxes right alongside the boxes of detergent. Some of the brands were Ivory Snow, Ivory Flakes, or White King Laundry Soap. You can still buy Ivory Snow, but it is made out of detergent now, not soap.

To wash my laundry with soap, I buy Zote laundry soap bars, at Mexican markets. It comes in White or Pink, but lately I have only found Pink. I found it at Big Lots, which means it is probably being discontinued. No! :-(

You can also still find Fels Naptha Soap bars. My mother liked to keep a bar of this in the laundry room to rub onto stains before doing the wash. We also used it to wash our hands when we might have been exposed to poison ivy.

I shred the bar of soap on a grater:

Or you could use a food processor.

I use about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of soap shreds for a load of laundry. I used to put the soap into the washer and fill with some water (hot or warm) before adding clothes, to dissolve the soap first before doing the wash cycle. But now I just add everything at the same time, and put it on the "soak" cycle and let it soak for a few hours or overnight. This gives the soap time to dissolve and clothes time to soak. This really makes the laundry come out clean!