Last night, Kyle and I whipped up a batch of homemade laundry detergent. All of these ingredients cost less than $15 (including the reusable 5 gallon bucket w/ lid). With each batch - which makes 3-4 gallons of detergent - only 1 cup of my A&H washing soda and 1/2 cup of my Borax is used... this'll last us awhile. The Fels Naptha soap is found in the laundry aisle alongside these other ingredients - and although you could use a bar soap that is .50 as opposed to this $1.95 bar, its not worth having my entire family break out in hives! Oi... such sensitive skin in this household. Not to mention, I only use 1/2 of this bar as opposed to using an entire bar if I were to use Ivory, Dove or the like. Now I'm waiting patiently to see how it works! I have to let it sit for an entire 24 hours... I'll let you know the results soon!
12 comments:
totally interested in that! Please do let us all know. We do 8-10 loads a week!
My good friend Kim has done this for a while and she loves it!
Ok, question though. Do you use a half a bar of soap each time? that seems more expensive than liquid detergent. And when it is all sitting for 24 hours, is the soap in there too? Sorry to be all mixed up, but now I am curious. Plus, does this work on front loaders? HE?
The 1/2 bar is used in the recipe. For example, 1/2 bar was used to make me 3-4 gallons of liquid detergent! Cheap! Ok... and I've just heard that the powder version of this recipe is better for front loaders -- go figure, I have front loaders! I'll try this out and then I'll do the powder version next.
Hey we make our own laundry detergent too...did I give you the recipe or is it just a coincidence? Well actually my recipe is a little different. Mine is 1/2 c borax, 1/2 c washing soda and 1 c grated soap and I just make it powder. I use whatever soap I have...I bought a pack of costco dove and don't really like the smell so now its my laundry soap, it works great and I have several friends who even use it for cloth diapers. We have been using if for almost a year and it works great, only 1Tb per load...pretty economical.
Ok... so I'm hearing the powder is better for front loaders?! Anyone? Anyone? I'm going to try that next... and I used the Fels-Naptha bar soap from the laundry aisle cause I hear it cleans superbly and I LOVE the smell... so fresh and so clean. ;)
This is great. It would be awesome to use for frontloaders but I am still hesitant to use it for our high efficiency (he)washers. They recommend liquid. And I use cloth diapers....grrr!
Oh this is angie, signed in on someone else! :)
I have been using the same recipe for over a year and LOVE IT. It has saved us so much money, with three young ones in the house we certainly do our share of laundry.
I LOVE this thread of all things 'Mom' and 'housework'... it makes me feel empowered and excited to do the grit when I know there are others out there doing the same! I WILL find the best recipe... I WILL find the best recipe... someday... someday... someday... ope, someone just came out of quiet time - gotta go reiterate the rules with a little pain.
I just started looking into this too. We do a lot of wash and are using cloth diapers so we could save a ton.
I have been using the liquid for my front loader for about 1 1/2 years. I love it. I only use 1/4 cup and it cleans well. I do add Oxyclean to my whites so they come out really white. I will be making mine with my own homemade lye soap that is unscented so I can add essential oil to the mix and make it smell however I want. I also add vinegar and essential oil to the rinse cycle and we have no static clean.
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