I used this recipe when DH and I first got married. It worked well, especially for normal cleaning. I still kept some store bought laundry detergent around for really soiled clothes.
Fels Naptha is a great soap for pretreating stains too… I scrubbed my boys’ baseball pants with it, wherever there were red clay stains from sliding into base etc.
When my girls were little, they liked to wear pink jeans and they’d get them dirty and grass stained.
Fels Naphtha got it all out every time, without fail.
“wherever there were red clay stains from sliding into base etc.”
that’s good to know, we have red clay here too. my white socks are permanently stained lol (so I thought!).