Try it, You'll like it! Tuesday - Homemade Laundry Detergent

Yeah, you're not going to want to eat this! However, you may save yourself some money if you make your own laundry detergent. It's simple, makes a good bit, and does a decent job of getting your clothes clean. You should be able to find everything you need at the grocery store. My initial costs were something like, $2.50 for the Fels Naptha, $7 for washing soda, $9 for borax, and $5 for the giant-sized bag of baking soda. I got my giant sized bag of baking soda at Costco.You will be able to get quite a few batches of detergent out of this. I re-used my empty laundry detergent container. If you are interested in a recipe for dry detergent, check out here.


You will need:
1 bar Fels Naptha soap, shaved
4 cups hot water to melt the soap
3 gallons hot water
1 cup borax
2 cups washing soda
1 cup baking soda
1 large container about 4-5 gallon size

 Grate the soap into a saucepan. You can use a box grater or food processor.

Add 4 cups hot water to the pan. Simmer on low until the soap melts completely into the water.

Add borax, washing soda and baking soda to the hot water. Simmer on low until it dissolves with the soap. If the mixture is not melting, add a little more water.

Keep an eye on it so it doesn't get all bubbly and almost  overflow onto the stove! Yikes! Almost had a disaster!




 Add 3 gallons of hot water into the 5-gallon container

 Add the mixture to the hot water.

 Mix with a large spoon until it completely dissolves.

 Let it cool overnight. It will turn into a thick, goopy gel. I gave it another good stirring after it was cool to break down some of the globs. I have a front loading machine, and I use about 1/2 cup per load

Have a happy laundry day!

Tweet