Homemade Laundry Detergent

I have often seen recipes online for homemade laundry detergent and wondered if they would actually work. I decided to give it a try. Most of the recipes I have seen are for liquid detergent, and you have to keep it in a very large bucket and stir it before each use. I didn't want to bother with all that hassle, and I don't have space in my laundry room for a huge bucket of liquid. However, I recently ran across a recipe for a powdered detergent, which I will show here.

I have used it (6 loads), and it works really quite well. To test it out, I did a load of laundry, planning to check every item before I put them into the dryer. I even left a big chocolate smear on my daughter's favorite blanket and didn't pre-treat it with anything. It came out perfectly clean! It smells good when you take it out of the washer, but after it has been through the dryer, there is not a perfumed smell to the clothing. I figured, give it a try. If it doesn't work, then (as long as you check your items before they go in the dryer), you can always re-wash them with store-bought detergent.

The entire process took very little time. I would say it took about 20 minutes, and that was partly because I was unsure how much bar soap I needed for 2 cups, so I had to keep chopping and measuring, and partly because I couldn't find a lid for my container! It would be even more time efficient if you doubled the amounts and made more, therefore only making the mess once, but I wanted to make a small amount to see if I actually liked it before I made a huge quantity.

THE MATH:I did the math on it and here's how it breaks down. I know that some people count their "time" as a factor, but I think you can only count your time if you could have actually been making money at the time you made it, meaning that if you have a job during the day, I don't think you can count your time as $15 per hour if you are home from work. Does that make sense? So I didn't account for any time involved.

The borax was $3.69 for 9.5 cups, which comes out to $1.17 for 3 cups needed. The washing soda was $3.19 for 55 oz, which comes out to 94 cents for the 2 cups needed. The baking soda was 79 cents for a 1 lb box, and you need 2 cups, so that is 79 cents. The Fels-Naptha soap cost me $1.09 per bar, and I used 1 bar plus about 1/3-1/2 of another bar. So it came out to about $1.64 for the soap. The total cost then, was $4.54 for the ingredients used, and it made enough soap for 72 loads of laundry, using 1/8 cup each time. That comes out to $0.06 cents per load. Now, I paid full price for the ingredients I bought, so if you could find the borax and washing soda on sale, you could get the price per load to be even cheaper.

Compare to (prices at amazon.com):

Powdered Tide at 26.85 for 120 load box = $0.22 cents per load

Powdered All at $6.91 (40 load box) = $0.17 cents per load

Powdered Gain at $14.62 (80 load box) = $0.18 cents per load

INGREDIENTS AND DIRECTIONS:

Here's what you will need:

3 cups of Borax

2 cups of Washing Soda

2 cups of Baking Soda

2 cups of grated Fels-Naptha soap (or other laundry soap). You need about 1 1/2 bars.

A grater (or better yet, a food processor with a grater attachment)

If you are unfamiliar with Fels-Naptha soap, it is the brownish bar that your grandmother or mother used to use to remove stains. You can find it in some grocery stores on the laundry aisle. Just look up high, out of the way. You can also purchase it at Amazon.com. Here is what it looks like:

Unwrap the bar of soap and cut it into pieces that will fit into your food processor. (Or grate it by hand if you don't have one).

Grate it using the grater attachment. It only takes a few seconds to be completely grated. It will look like pieces of plastic cheese. (sorry for the shadow of my thumb in the picture). I then dumped out the grated soap and removed my grater attachment, replacing it with my regular chopping blade. Then I let the chopping blade run for about 1-2 minutes, until the grated soap was turned into tiny little pellets. You don't have to do this, I just thought it might help the soap to dissolve faster.

From there, measure the soap and combine it with 3 cups borax, 2 cups washing soda, and 2 cups baking soda.

Stir well to combine and pour into a container with a tight fitting lid. I used an empty #10 can with a plastic lid. Clean up was easy. I put everything in the dishwasher and cleaned it really well. After all, it's just soap!

To use, measure 1/8 cup of detergent and add to water in your washer like regular detergent. (Note: for high-efficiency washers, you should probably cut this amount way down. I don't have a he washer, and they do have different detergent requirements.) I measured 1/8 cup (which is about 2 tablespoons) and then drew a with a permanent marker to mark the "fill" line. I didn't believe it was enough. It was hard to not add more detergent because it looked like so little compared to the store brands. But it actually worked great! And by using less chemicals, you are helping to protect the environment!! (Of course, that's why we're all pinching pennies, right?? LOL)