Would you like your laundry to get super clean with a detergent that costs a fraction of what you would buy in the store? You would be surprised just how fast, easy and economical it is to make your own laundry detergent. There are only three ingredients. With this recipe the cost is between $.05 and $.07 per load. A typical boughten laundry detergent is around $.21 per load. Making our own detergent reduces the phosphates and harsh chemicals we add to the environment. It's also better for folks with allergies to the additives found in many commercial laundry detergents. This is a low-suds formula so it will work in a High Efficiency (HE) washer.
I found the three ingredients at my local small grocery store among laundry supplies:
- Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
- 20 Mule Team Borax
- Bar soap - I chose Fels Naptha
Here's the recipe and how you put it together:
Recipe
- 1/2 bar of Fels Naptha or 1 bar of Ivory. Homemade soap works well too.
- 1 cup Borax
- 1 cup Washing Soda
1. Gather supplies
2. Grate the bar soap into a container - just 1/2 of the bar if using the Fels Naptha because it's a little larger than most bars
3. Add 1 cup of Borax
4. Add 1 cup Washing Soda
5. Stir. And sitr. And stir until it is a homogenous powder.
6. Which I found takes more stirring than I wanted to do. Sooooo..... I did this. I put it in the blender for a few moments on medium until it turned into a consistent fine powder. A lot easier and more effective.
Since this only makes a little over 2 cups of detergent (don't worry, a little goes a long way) I decided to store it in this recycled yogurt container. Anything with a wide mouth and a lid should work fine.
Then you use just 1 - 2 tablespoons when you do a load of laundry. I start my washer and then add my homemade laundry detergent to the water a few moments before I add the clothes so that the detergent starts to dissolve a little first.
At one tablespoon per load this batch will wash about 32 loads of laundry. Of course you can double the recipe if you want to make it less often. It doesn't suds very much but don't let that worry you. It does a great job of cleaning. It is a fairly natural product without some of the hazardous additives that commercial detergents have but it is soap. So, ya know, don't feed it to the kids.
Label the container and you're done.
