Those are neat! Do you actually use them for washing or just for display in the guest bath?

Washing Soda has a higher Ph than Borax. I do agree that people who use this home made detergent/soap are not dosing high enough. However, it occurs to me that if I was hand washing, I would only be rubbing the garment with the bar of soap, and in all reality not using much of that bar at all. So technically, in my mind, for a whole load of wash, you really do not need a ton of bar soap. It just makes more suds to rinse. However, I do think that front loaders and top loaders need totally different dosing simply because of dilution. Secondly, the liquid version of this home soap is wayyy more diluted than the powered. There is no way in hell that a half a cup of that liquid would clean the average soiled load of laundry. All that said, years ago I made this home made stuff because I was barely scraping by financially. I had a traditional top load washer, made the liquid version, 1/2 cup a load, and with pretty hard water. Six months later, I had gray whites. Mainly white towels...and I could not reverse it. I ended up throwing them out because that was the first (and last) time in my life that I had ever, ever had dingy laundry, and I was embarrassed. I was also cloth diapering at that time, and had zero issues until the tattle tale gray took over. I never had a sour smell or absorbency issues, but I did not use any additional softener with it. In my honest opinion, I DO think you can get, and maintain, clean laundry with the homemade version, IF you know what you are doing. All of the major laundry areas become more crucial to achieve results. Soil level, water hardness, amount of dilution, and water temperature are all areas that should be considered. Since every household is different, the formula should be tweaked to suit each household's laundry.

Hmmm. I'm on a mac and use chrome. If I try to post a pic in the first post...I use the photo button below on something off the desktop...it will just sit and spin like it's trying to load and the whole screen is grayed out and freezes. If I post in the first comment, it loads right away...within a second or two.

Jackie, they are beautiful. So many blooms, wow!! Jackie how many roses are there ? I meant is it one bush, 2 or 3 ?? I am curious but I will be shocked if you said one. Congrats for posting and I am sure glad you manage to do that :) BEAUTIFUL jin