Home Made Laundry Detergent

Many of you have probably heard of people making their own laundry soap and may think like I did before I learned how. "Why would I want to take the time to do that?" and "Does it even work?"

Well about a year ago my oldest daughter and I went to our monthly Keepers at Home meeting and the topic that night was laundry. We were told to bring only a few simple ingredients to make our own laundry soap.

1 bar of Fels Naptha Soap
1 Box of Borax
1 box of Arm and Hammer Washing Soda
a container to store it in OR a 5 gallon bucket for liquid soap
a grater

Picture found here 

With these simple ingredients that cost about $7 you can make your own laundry soap. Here's what I do to make mine. I use the powder. I know many prefer liquid and that's fine but for my family living in a small 3 bedroom townhouse apartment i don't have storage space for a BIG 5 gallon bucket. A small container on top of our dryer works great. 

Directions for Powder Detergent

1. Grate the fels Naptha or other natural soap of your choice. Fels Naptha can be found in the soap aisle of your grocery store for under $2.

2. Measure out 1 cup of each of the Borax and Arm and Hammer Washing Soda

3. Pour all 3 into your container and shake well. 

4. To use in your washer you only need a small amount around 1-2 tablespoons. 

Directions for Liquid

1. Just like before grate your soap.

2. Melt grated soap on the stove in a saucepan.

3. Pour melted soap, 1 cup Borax and 1 cup Washing Soda into your 5 gallon bucket.

4. Fill the bucket with water.

5. Stir with a yard stick.

6. To use measure about 1 cup for each load of laundry. You can store in old laundry soap bottles if desired.

This process takes a matter of minutes and I spend under $2 a month for laundry soap unless I'm in need of a new box of Borax or washing soda. Either way that saves us a LOT of $! The even better advantage? It's ALL NATURAL! That means I can use it on my entire family's clothes without worrying about buying expensive baby soaps for the new addition coming in a few short months. 

I can also use it on my cloth diapers! I love this aspect because so many cloth diaper users buy special cloth diaper laundry soaps that aren't cheap. Or they use commercial soaps like Tide and run the risk of having build up and eventually rash or smell issues.

Are you convinced? Probably not until you give it a try yourself! Go ahead and put it to the test. Use a little on stains to remove them and use it in your washer on your clothes or cloth diapers. Let me know what you think! If you have a different recipe feel free to share it too. .