Homemade Laundry Detergent

At the end of January, Debbie and I got together to make our own laundry detergent.  I found this "recipe" on Pinterest and it looked pretty dang easy so here we are making it!  On the original post, she says that she finds everything in different locations but when I went to Wal-Mart, all of these things were literally in a row right next to each other so it was super easy to find it all.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

* One 4 lb 12 oz box Borax

* One 4 lb box Arm & Hammer Baking Soda

* One  3 lb 7 oz box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda

 

* Three bars of Fels-Naptha soap (not pictured - sorry, we started working on it before I took this pic!)

 

*Two small containers (try to get 3.5 lbs total) of OxiClean or store brand OxiClean

The first thing you need to do is grate the soap like you would cheese.  I used my Pampered Chef handheld grater and Debbie used a good ole' fashioned grater.

I had read that if you leave the soap in larger pieces that it doesn't dissolve very well in cold water (which I use all the time) so we decided to go one step further and really chop it up using Debbie's Magic Bullet.  You could also possibly use a blender but try it on a little bit of it first to see what happens.

This is what you want it to look like ... small little pellets of soap.

Take all ingredients and mix it up.  We used a 5-gallon bucket because it had enough room to dump it all in yet enough space at the top to be able to mix it all and not have it go over the top.  I just ued my hands and mixed it.  It was super easy!

Here's what it looks like in the bucket.  I went and bought a big jar from Walmart for about $10.00 which I have in my laundry room.  You only use 1 tablespoon of detergent for a load of laundry.  If you don't want to buy a fancy tablespoon scoop, you're in luck because the OxiClean containers come with one so you'll end up with two of them!

To do a load of laundry, I start the water and let it fill up in the machine about three inches, then add the detergent.  It dissolves almost instantly.  You can then put the clothes in on top of the water.

I've been very pleased with how it works.  I have noticed that for some of Scott's heavily-soiled jeans it doesn't do the greatest job but then again I didn't pre-treat them at all.  I guess I'll have to try that the next time that happens.  All-in-all, I give it a thumbs up!