Difficulty: Beginner
This may sound crazy, but I make my own laundry detergent. You’re probably thinking why go through the trouble, just pick up a bottle at the store. Well I first started making my own detergent when my second child was about eight or nine months old. Little kids and babies create a lot of laundry, so I was looking for a way to save some money on laundry.
I did some research and found several recipes online. Some were for liquid detergents and others were for powder, but the basic methods were about the same and the cost savings was ridiculous. I had to give it a try. The first batch that I made I used Ivory bar soap, because I didn’t know where to find the laundry bar soap at my local grocery store. I also had to order one of the ingredients online, because I couldn’t get it at my local store.
I know, so far it seems like more trouble than it’s worth. Shipping an ingredient to make laundry detergent, who does that?! Me, but I shipped to store, so my shipping costs were $0. I just had to wait for my shipment to come in and I think it took six weeks. I know, just pick up a bottle of detergent the next time I go grocery shopping and forget this nonsense.
I didn’t give up my mission and once I had all of my ingredients I made my first batch. The cost savings was amazing, but the detergent was meh. It worked well on lightly dirty clothing with no visible stains, but was no match for a baby and toddler’s stains. I started pretreating those stains with a store bought stain remover and then laundering with my homemade detergent, which I know, sort of defeats the purpose of the homemade detergent.
With the next batch I was able to use actual laundry bar soap. I found Fels Naptha laundry bar soap at a general store in Ohio Amish country and grabbed a few bars. Shortly after, I found that my local grocery store does sell the laundry bar soap, but they stock it with bath soap, not with laundry detergent which is why I didn’t find it the first time.
I made a batch with the Fels Naptha the next time and the consistency of the detergent was much more similar to store bought detergent, which was promising. I tried it and it worked much better on the stains. I even tried it on our cloth diapers and it did a great job!
My persistence paid off. I had 10 gallons of laundry detergent that cost me less than $7 to make and it worked pretty well on stains. I even started using the homemade detergent to pretreat stains instead of store bought stain remover.
If you would like to try making your own laundry detergent you can buy all of the ingredients at Walmart. The price per gallon of homemade detergent works out to $.66. You can’t beat that unless you can get it for free.
Supplies
1 Bar of Fels Naptha laundry soap or half a bar of Pink Zote Laundry soap
1 Cup Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda (not baking soda)
½ Cup 20 Mule Team Borax
5 gallon bucket with lid (home depot homer bucket is perfect)
Water
Cheese grater
Medium pot
Add four cups hot tap water to your pot. Use cheese grater to grate soap into pot of water, if using Pink Zote be sure to only grate half the bar for this recipe. Just grate away the “zo” and leave the “te” for the next batch of detergent that you make.
Once the soap has been grated into the pot of water put pot over a medium burner and stir constantly to melt the soap. Watch the pot to prevent bubbling over, reduce heat if suds start to form. Once soap is melted remove from heat. Then add washing soda and borax to the five gallon bucket and fill ¼ full with hot tap water, then stir with a large spoon to dissolve. Once dissolved fill bucket to within two inches from top of bucket with hot tap water.
Then pour melted soap concentrate into five gallon bucket and gently stir with large spoon.
Put lid on bucket and leave to sit overnight. The next day remove lid and the soap mixture will have gelled. Fill an empty detergent bottle half way with soap concentrate and shake to break up gel. Fill the rest of the way with hot tap water and shake to combine. Use ¾ cup for top loaders and ¼ cup or less for front loaders and HE washers. Shake bottle before each use since it can separate.
There you have it! Drastically reduce your laundry care costs with a little know how and a lot of elbow grease. Seriously my arm is always sore after grating all of that soap.