Make Your Own Laundry Detergent

You may or may not know that I cloth diaper. Kylie and Kierra are one year apart, both are currently still in diapers. So about 90% of the time they are in cloth diapers. There are many reasons why I do this, and for me the Pros definitely outweigh the Cons. Interested?? Read about it in my Cloth Diaper blog post.

Two in cloth diapers plus our everyday laundry adds up to lots of clothes to wash, roughly every other day. Most of you know I'm the queen of Cheap, I'm fluent in the language of Frugal. With two young kids and the economy these days who can afford not to be on a budget?? Not this Momma. So anyway I did a little research a few months back on homemade laundry soap. Mostly because I was out of my beloved Rockin Green soap and didn't feel like spending money on something I could probably replicate at home, in my own kitcken.

You could google how to make it yourself, tons of recipes on the internet. Only fair that I link to the site I found the recipe I use so here is that. http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/03/15/how-to-make-your-own-laundry-detergent-and-save-big-money/ But here is my little tweak on the recipe they have listed.

You Will Need

Bucket that holds five gallons, I use old cat litter bucket

Bar of body soap, I use Ivory but pretty much anything will do as long as it's not a 'beauty bar' (dove)

Box of Washing Soda, different from Baking Soda. Comes in a yellow Arm and Hammer box down the laundry aisle.

Box of Borax, Ten Mule Team brand white box, also located down the laundry aisle.

H2O, four cups to start, then enough later to fill bucket to near the top.

Measuring cups, a big soup pot, spoon, empty laundry detergent jug (if you wish), funnel helps though I don't have one.

Preparations

In your big soup pot heat four cups of water to boiling. While that is going you'll want to start whittling your bar of soap into fine flakes. You COULD use a food processor, have not tried this but guess it's an option. But for myself a paring knife works well. Takes about five minutes or so. Worth nothing...I use about 3/4 of the bar of soap. I suspect that the natural oils in the soap were 'sticking' to my clothes after awhile, and really I thought that the scent was a bit strong. But feel free to experiment and see what works for you.

Your pot of water should be soapy, and have little to no trace of floating soap flakes left. Carefully pour your soapy water into the Five gallon bucket. You will want to fill the bucket now with Hot water to about 3/4 the way full. Stirring.

Now, measure out Two cups of the Washing Soda, add to the soapy water mixture. Noteworthy...original recipe calls for one cup of washing soda. I felt it didn't have enough cleaning power so I upped it to two cups with much better results.

Measure out One cup of Borax, and add to the bucket. Stir well. If you used hot water should dissolve and mix together fairly easily.

Now let it sit and cool. I make a batch before bedtime and by the time I wake up it's ready. The end product once it has cooled completely is a sort of jelly. It reminds me of Asian puddings Not as firm as 'jello' you can easily break it up with a spoon and it is still pretty watery.

Now to transfer to your desired container if you wish, this is where the funnel comes in handy. Fills a big bottle twice over. The entire batch lasts two months or so. So easy to make, and it really works my clothes are clean, they don't have that 'commercial detergent' smell. But clean and good enough, especially for diapers. Which when I do diapers if I'm doing a large load I add a cup of Oxyclean to the cycle. Would add it to the detergent but not sure if it would hold its cleaning power if mixed into the wet detergent and left to sit??

Hope you consider making your own detergent like me, so easy, fun and cheap cheap cheap!! Happy sudsing!!