Homemade Laundry Detergent

Ever feel like all you do is laundry? It has started to get out of hand at our house with my daughter deciding she needs to change her outfit at least twice a day. Couple that with increasing food/gas/living costs and I am on a mission to reduce how much we spend.

There are a lot, I mean A LOT of recipes out there for homemade laundry detergent. Since the same ingredients kept showing up in different formulations, I threw caution to the wind and combined them all into my own recipe.

 

                                                                                              Source: sewlikemymom.com via Kim on Pinterest

I started out with the basics:
- Borax
- Super Washing Soda
- Fels-Naptha
Most powered recipes call for these ingredients.

I also added:
- Generic oxyclean
- One bar or ivory soap (because I was planning to make a lot)

Add one tablespoon for each load.

                                                                                                    Source: ehow.com via Sarah on Pinterest

I shredded the bars of soap in my food processor and then chopped it up some more with the blade that goes in the bottom of the food processor, then added three cups each of the powders. I have more left over but I thought before I go hog wild I would see how well it cleans.

I have read mixed reviews on if this detergent is safe for cloth diapers. Since my daughter is rarely wearing a diaper any more this isn't a big concern for me, but if anyone else digs further than I did a gets a definitive answer I would love to find out.

After an afternoon of laundry everything looks clean and smells nice. I read somewhere that it breaks down to about nine cents a load versus twenty-one if you are using Tide or something similar. That doesn't seem like that big a difference but if you do one load a day for 365 days you are looking at $32.85 vs $76.65!

I spent more time trying to find the "right" recipe than it took me to make the detergent. Now I am motivated to make my own dishwasher detergent and granite cleaner.  An easy 5 pins!