Homemade Laundry Detergent

There's something about mixing up your own household cleaner/detergent to make you feel very domestic! I've seen lots of blogs lately talking about going green in different ways including making your own cleaners. I knew that cleaners had lots of chemicals in them but if you really start looking at the ingredient lists, it's a little scary. I've had breathing issues after using bleach in cleaning and laundry and that's without any other respiratory issues. So while I'm not all 'save the planet, hug a tree,' I think that we should be good stewards of our environmental resources and if I can reduce the amount of chemicals in my house, that's got to be a good thing! In my quest to pinch some pennies and make our home a little 'greener', I found a recipe for homemade laundry detergent to try. (Thanks for sharing, Deana!)

I assembled my supplies: Borax, Baking Soda (I couldn't find Washing Soda), and Ivory soap. (It was on sale last week so I thought I'd try it.) I've seen other recipes that call for different brands of bar soap or adding some essential oils. I might try some variations down the road.

Using my handy-dandy KitchenAid mixer with the shredder attachment, I shredded the soap in about 2 minutes tops!

 

After shredding a bar of soap, I added 2 cups of Borax and 2 cups of baking soda to the bowl and mixed it up. Using my canning funnel, I put it all into my Ikea Burken jar.

Some measurement info for future reference:
Borax 4lb 12oz (76 oz) = 11 cups
Baking Soda 4lb = 8 cups
9" Ikea Burken jar = almost 2 batches of detergent
The little bit of extra detergent that didn't fit into my jar went into a spare canning jar. I also shredded the 3rd bar of soap since I had everything out. That went into a canning jar too.
Then, I gave all my tools a really good rinse in the sink and then washed them in the dishwasher to be sure to get all of the soap residue off.

So the real question.... does it work?? Yes! I think so. I've done 2 loads with some dirty, stinky clothes (no names will be mentioned to protect the not-so-innocent.) After they were dry, I gave those stinky things a good sniff test. I have to admit, I was really hesitant to breathe deeply but everything smelled clean and fresh, and a dusty, dirty shirt that was used doing lawn work came clean too. Making the detergent took all of 10 minutes and cost about $5.00 for about 155 loads of laundry. That's $0.03 per load compared to my regular detergent at $0.18 per load after using a coupon! But I shall not kick myself for not doing this sooner. There's no time like the present and plenty more laundry to come to make detergent for!

Isn't it pretty? I think a new project for my 'to-do' list is a vinyl label for the jar. Then, perfection!

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This project was featured here