Another Use for J&J Buddies Bars

[JANE4girls]

how do you do the powder? just mix all the dry ingredients and not add the water?

[purplefdu]

Yeah I did find three different recipes for the dry soap but most are pretty similar to the wet just without water, I've got to borrow my parents food processor though as the buddies bars are very soft and don't crumble so they are huge chunks with powdery stuff. Most people seem to throw it in the food processor but we've only got a tiny one for use with the blender.

I planned on putting the dry in those cute takeout boxes they sell at AC Moore in tons of colors with a scoop ot something if I can find them cheap. Maybe a colorful tin or empty bucket (they sell one gallons at Walmart and we get them from the bakery as well). The liquid would be going in repurposed Minute Maid juice bottles (the nice clear ones with black lids, or possibly a 2 or 5 gallon bucket.

[JANE4girls]

I am going to have to check it out, just for fun, lol!

[Dhunny318]

Wow, OP! What a cool idea! I love science, but I don't think that much lol.

I use the buddies as a bathroom cleaner.....because it has the mesh on top of it, its great for scrubbing mildew or soap scum. And since its a kids soap, I know that it won't harm my boy or my kitty if I use it.

Another use: take it out of the box, fold up a towel and washcoth, and place the soap in one of the folds. Place this on the bed in your extra bedroom (or couch) for any overnight guests.

[purplefdu]

Alright so I made another batch last night, Used 1 bar of Zest (4oz) and two bars of J&J buddies (4.9oz). I increased the borax (1 2/3 cup) so that it was more than the washing soda (1 1/3 cup) and cut the water in half to 2 gallons (2x concentrated) and it is a beautiful opaque blue/green and thickened almost immediately upon adding the borax and mixing. An immersion blender would be nice, but the wire whisk has worked out ok. Its really gloopy but I'm hoping its pourable so I can tote it back and forth to the laundry mat.

[oceanbreeze]

...not as creative as you guys but we use some of ours for handsoaps or travel bars.

[katrina23]

Gee, I just use borax when I'm using cheap detergent. I started using it ages ago, when we washed diapers. I've never made laundry detergent. How is it on stains?

[purplefdu]

The place I got the recipes from has comments that its as good or better than tide for this laundry mix. My mom just used it the other day on DH's work clothes he used to paint his friend's house in so we'll see. Borax is meant to make detergent more powerful so it should work fine.

[frugalphoebe]

I have 3 messy kids and a husband that looks as if he rolls in dirt half the time, and I have never had an issue with stains while using this. I still spray shout on some of the tough ones before I wash them...but that is no different that when I used the commercial laundry detergent. I've switched to fully homemade detergent and fabric softener...and I like both of them much more than commercial.

[clarkestep]

I just made some up using 1c each of the JJ soap, washing soda, and borax. I finely grated the soap and then put it into my blender. I used a jar that came with it and screwed on the blender piece. I then added one of the other ingredients and blended with it. When finished blending it was just powdered and I added it to the last ingredient and shook up to blend.

To use I figured that it took about 2TBS of the powder for a Super sized load in a top loading machine. I will half it for a small load and do about 1.5TBS for a medium sized load and see how it works.

I did notice that after using, I smelled the pits of DHs shirt and they still smelled of his antiperspirant. Not of stink though. We'll see how it does in the long run and I'll post.

jennifer