Homemade Laundry Detergent

It seems to becoming more and more recognized nowadays that people are getting on the bandwagon and making their own detergents and cleaners, and I am one of those people.

It has been about a year now that I have been making our laundry detergents and other various cleaners (which I will talk about in upcoming posts) and I can honestly say that I can't EVER see myself going back to the store bought any time soon.

There are many reasons that I started doing this, one being that I have been suffering from eczema for years and although I never had "issues" because of the detergents I was using, there were products that I was, so I thought I would find out more about making my own with less chemicals. There are tons of websites out there that you can learn so much from and get amazing recipes.

So I wanted to start with the laundry detergent and the first batch I made was a powdered version and I just did one gallon. We loved it! It does take time to get used to because it doesn't suds up like the store bought but the sudsing of soap has nothing to do with the actual cleaning power of it.

Powdered Laundry Detergent:

1 cup of grated Fels Naphta Soap

1 cup of washing soda (NOT baking soda)

1 cup of Borax

Grate the soap and mix everything together and there you have it! Use 2 tbsp per load!!!! If you have dingier clothes you may want to use a bit more.

You don't need to use Fels Naphta, you can use Ivory or any other kind, it just depends on what you like.

Liquid Laundry Detergent

Grate 1 bar of Fels Naphta in 5 cups of boiling water. Let sit while you prepare the rest.

Take a 5 gallon pail (with a cover) and put 3 gallons of hot water, add 1 cup of borax and 1 cup of washing soda until dissolved.

Add the melted soap mixture to the pail and stir well.

Cover the pail and set aside for 24 hrs. It is normal that it may be a bit watery or a bit gel like. If it is gel like make sure you stir well before putting into the washer.

Use 1/2 cup per load.

So why spend tons of money on store bought when you can make your own for so much less?

Fels Naphta      .99 cents

Box of Borax   2.99$

Washing Soda 2.99$

All found in the laundry aisle at Wal-Mart.

Happy Laundry!