Homemade Liguid-Gel Laundry Detergent

1 bar Zote soap
1 c. borax
1 c. washing soda (i.e. Arm & Hammer)
water
5 gallon bucket with lid

Cut ZOTE into large chunks. Then using the grating blade of your food processor, grate soap. If you don't have a food processor, you can always grate the soap by hand.

Place grated soap into a heavy stock pot. Pour in 12 cups of hot water. Heat mixture over med-high heat until soap dissolves. Stir often using a long handle mixing spoon or whisk to keep soap from clumping on you.

After soap is completely dissolved, pour in borax and washing powder. Stir well as powder is added to soap water. The mixture will become "tight" feeling and heavy. This is normal. Stir continuously allowing heat to dissolve powders. Remove pot from heat.

To your bucket, pour in 8 cups of hot tap water. Slowly pour in hot soap mixture. Be careful not to splatter and burn yourself. Stir vigorously to mix well.

Continue adding 40 cups more of hot tap water to your bucket as you stir mixture.

Let soap cool completely. During the cooling process you can come back and stir the mixture every so often if you care to, but it's not necessary. As the soap cools it will begin to coagulate and become more gel like. If your mixture is partially gel and partial water consistency after it cools completely, this is ok. Just stir before each laundry application if you care to. Soap will dissolve in the laundry water just as would store bought detergent.

To use: For lightly soiled laundry, use 1/4 cup or less of detergent per wash load. For heavily soiled laundry, use 1/3 - 1/2 cup of detergent per wash load.