Laundry soap adventures

I've been intrigued for a while in making my own household cleaners.  For quite some time we've been using a spray bottle of vinegar as an all purpose cleaner and also using vinegar as fabric softener.  I'd finally heard so much on Pinterest about making your own laundry detergent that I decided to try it.  I read many, many, many recipes and found that they are all mostly the same with a few added ingredients in some of them.  After all of my reading I made a trip to the store and made my own.  I'm a week into using my own laundry detergent and I must say I am very pleased!  I've even used it on a particularly messy batch of cloth diapers and it works like a charm!  I'm hooked!  It's healthier for my family and the environment and cheaper (over the long haul) than store bought detergents also.  The ingredients cost me about $20 up front, but they will last me so long that I can't even imagine the cost savings!

Ok, enough about me, here is the recipe I used.  I will double it next time, but wanted to make a smaller batch to try it out first.

1/2 bar of ivory soap (everything I read says to use any soap you like.  Ivory is cheap so I bought it)
1/2 cup borax
1/2 cup WASHING soda
1/2 cup BAKING soda

Step 1: Grate soap.
Step 2: Put all ingredients in blender and blend.  (be careful, I blended too fast for too long and it made the mixture get warm, which slightly melted the soap and made my powder lumpy)
Step 3: Use 1 Tablespoon per load of laundry.

That's it. Easy, right? You can apparently also make this a liquid by melting the soap in boiling water and adding all ingredients plus the melted soap water to a couple if gallins of water. Then you would use 1/2 to 1 whole cup of detergent to each load.
I've always used liquid detergent, but just didn't want the hassle of making it a liquid. And I'm actually a little surprised at how well this homemade detergent is working! I love it! You ought to try it!