Always, I will tackle this load in the morning, I'm beat.. but trust me, I'll give you my humble opinion LOL.

I don't like the idea of it. It's heavy in carbonates, but no citrates, polycarboxylates or zeolites. So... It'd leave a heavy participate in hard water conditions, because there's no other water mineral softener.

That... and the surfactant it relies upon, is non-synthetic. It requires very high temperatures to melt and activate properly, and participates as well. Anionic & Nonionic surfactants would work much better.

If someone mixed Orvus Powder (surfactant), Sodium Tripolyphosphate (builder), Sodium Carbonate (builder), Sodium Metasilicate (anti-corrosion agent) , Sodium Percarbonate (oxygen bleach), and small amounts of Sodium Hydroxide (ph builder), than of course... Sodium Chloride (table salt) as a filler, they'd certainly have something. Crush up some scent booster.. and you'd have a fragrance.

*Perhaps a bulk container of Oxyclean since it contains soda-ash and a bleach activator*

Much better than any other home brew, for sure. And if you were really good.. you could add meat tenderizer salt, for enzymes. How stable they'd be.. I'm not too sure.

I lost count of how many YouTube videos there are out there of homemade soap using Zote or fels faptha, Arm and Hammer washing soda, Borax, usually oxi clean and sometimes a fragrance.

Mich, since when does Oxiclean have a bleach activator? .......with Miches recipe either omit the first dose of sodium carbonate or the oxiclean..otherwise that's a lot of sodium carbonate. I think Mich should develope his own detergent. ..and we will all buy from you Mich.

Always...the back of the Borax and Washing Soda boxes say to use like 1/2 cup to BOOST your laundry detergent. ..so how do these people online think that adding a few grams of 4 different products are going to clean a load of laundry. You probably could get clean clothes out of this mixture if enough of each product was used and that would sure be a ton more than the recommended dose of 2T.....it would also require STPP, tons of hot water for washing and rinsing and a wringer washer. This is pretty close to what was used years ago before detergent was developed...boxed soap flakes was a hit at one time but that was using wringers...and before wringers soap bars and washing soda were used at the river with a big rock...lol....the laundry bar soaps Fels-Naptha and Zote will clean clothes but will require more than these recipes call for, you will need to use enough that you get a few inches at least of foamy suds in very hot water, this was a standard back in wringer washer days before synthetic detergents...but remember hot tap was much hotter than todays hot tap, most hot water heaters pumped out 140--160F hot water ...

Back to the online recipe...although not enough soap is being used, enough is used to cause long term problems, the scum will slowely build up in the fibers of the clothes and on the washer parts, scum and soils, after several months clothes will become dull and dingy and develope odors, same with the washer parts they also will develope build up of scum and soils and odors...yet using a bunch more of these products can produce clean and beautifully soft and fresh smelling clothes..in a wringer washer under the right conditions being..very hot water to wash along with STPP and these two are a MUST...you need at least 4 rinses all done in hot or very warm warm water with STPP added to the first rinse...sounds like a lot of work huh, that's why grandma was so excited when synthetic detergent came along.

I will hopefully be getting a wringer washer in the future, something to play with out on the patio...when this happens I plan to fo a load of sheets in vintage Ivory Flakes (shaved soap)...you can bet when this happens I will do a video for everyone..ok did I just write a novel lol

Just don't.....

I'll bite. I've been playing around with homemade laundry soap. Here's my best one so far. 4 parts washing soda, 1 part citric acid, 2 parts 0 fat soap. Not fels or any commercial laundry bar. Would be better to sub in 1 part blue Dawn instead of a commercial laundry bar. No borax. Add to each load if you feel it helps. It just buffers ph and there isn't enough to do anything else. Also need to factor in how much water you use for a wash cycle. Need to check ph or feel for the alkaline slip. The soap scum buildup is caused by the fat in the soap. Using a soap or detergent without fat fixes that. I've been using this exclusively in one washer exclusively with good results and no buildup whatsoever. If using a fatted soap you would have to follow with an acid to break down the fat. Lowering the ph of soap caused the remaining oils to seperate from the surfactants so laundry soaks up excess oils.

Any of the SLS (lauryl sulfates) you would need to build a custom blend are available on cosmetic and soap making websites but basically a bottle of basic dishsoap has it all there.

And to add enzymes, there are powdered brewing enzymes that are modified to withstand alkaline conditions. Meat tenderizer is made from papain, papaya. It prefers a neutral or slightly acidic environment. Fine for pretreater but useless in alkaline water.

Sandy, I was under the impression all soaps take fat of some sort?

Roc, I know you can't wrap your head around the WHY, I ask myself the same question about many different things people do that I find silly or a waste of time, but people have different interests/hobbies...playing with detergents and different laundry chemicals go way way back, its nothing new and who knows if someone in this group will eventually play around enough to mix the perfect amount of chemicals together to make the PERFECT detergent...Our own Sin has come up with a formula-- powder Sears detergent, Wisk, STPP and sodium percarbonate. ..that although sounds like its just your basic over the counter, used daily by many products, BUT when used together is workhorse for sure.

Hmmmm.

Waxy Ring-Around-the-Washer Tub

Always, are you already using the homemade brew? If so that could be your residue

Lye + water + fat, oil or wax = soap. Saponification converts the fats to soap. Any excess fat is converted to glycerine. No extra fat means 0 glycerine or moisturizing. There's no fat left. It's all been converted or saponified. Wax actually leaves behind stearic acid but that's a different matter. Lol.

Roc - I'm always playing with something. Why not laundry detergent? :)

Mama: No, don't use a homemade detergent. I had run across this site when I was googling about the waxy build up in my tub. I figured homemade wasn't a big thing here because no one talks about it. I was just wondering. I'd much rather buy than make it.

Thank you Sandy for the explanation..I'm totally in the blind about soap making, I envy you.

Always, does your residue wipe off on your fingers easily feeling waxy or slippery?

Once dadoes said very cold water in the rinse can do strange things, I started turning my dial around to wash so I could get a more reasonable rinse, tepid, the residue I had with the cold rinses disappeared. how cold is your water right now? For me I think my cold at being 41F turns the FS to solids. I could just not use FS but is my cold still to cold to get proper rinsing??

I need to go back to YouTube to see if anyone has decided to go really old school and use Lye soap in their wash, lol.

Mama: I have no idea how cold my water is. I had to use the brillo side of my sponge to get the gunk off, I used a little bit of comet and I came off with no problem. I noticed more of how it looked, which was waxy to me. I didn't feel it.

Mama-so are you saying for the rinse you run start it over to the wash cycle to get the warm water?

Yes I do..easy with a standard..but I can see no other choice with my cold water being beyond cold. Thats one feature I miss from my Roper ( Whirlpool) it had the option for warm rinses.

@sandy1616 - Point taken about the hobby aspect. I've seen blogs that advocate using it all the time instead of detergents.

I admire those of you who understand the chemistry. As a hobby great. Just don't see it for general usage.

Don't get me wrong. Love me my laundry and love trying various products. But my goal is to get fewer that work the way I want.

Then I go play Scrabble and Words with Friends LOL

What I meant was... you could replace the Sodium Carbonate in the formula with OxyClean.

And yes.. certain formulations of OxyClean Powder do contain TAED. I can't give you the skus & names on the top of my head.. but I know they are out there.

And of course.. you could omit the Sodium Chloride, but I'd prefer to leave it in.. just so it'd be easier to dose. I wouldn't want something super, super concentrated.

I'm not too sure.. this is something I would pursue, but I have experimented with making homemade dishwasher detergent. I actually did have something quite *good* that functioned well in hard water, however.. it would cause sudsing in soft water.

Then another formula of mine was Sodium Chloride, STPP, Sodium Carbonate, Sodium Metasilicate, Sodium Hydroxide and Sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione. It performed extremely well, but was very uneconomical and was missing a built in rinse agent I couldn't figure out how to properly add.

^If I could somehow obtain enough volume to order in Bulk, I'd definitely have something there...

Sounds good Mich...why haven't you ever formulated a detergent? I know once upon a time you were interested, yes Mich I followed you on AW, simply because I found the vast majority of your posts interesting and educating, I think this would be a cool thing for you to do, even if its just in your own kitchen with us, your laundry nerdy friends testing out your detergent, I'll even help you with costs lol, not that I can afford a large venture but I'd help...think about this Mich, you have the knowelage to do this.

I wrote this before I seen your last post lol

Mitch if you lived closer we'd have a DIY playdate :). What caused the sudsing?