Monday, May 23, 2011

Homemade Laundry Detergent

As part of my goals for the year, I wanted to try to make my own laundry detergent. I recently ran out of my Tide so I figured now was as good of time as any. It actually turned out to be a pretty easy process.
 
First chop the bar of soap (I used Ivory. A lot of blogs recommended Fels Naptha) and send it for a buzz in the food processor. I read somewhere that if you unwrap the bar of soap and allow it to dry out for a week or so it will grind up nicely. Well I had planned on making this recipe sometime in November so it has been drying for a while.
 
Second pour 1 cup of Borax and 1 cup of washing soda (not baking soda) with the powdered bar of soap into your storage container of choice. I had this bucket laying around.

Next I put the lid on the container and started to shake to combine the ingredients. Big mistake, white powder flew everywhere. Apparently the lid is not completely air tight. So I finished mixing with a spoon.  


The recipe calls for 2 Tablespoons to every load, and I believe one batch will accommodate approximately 40 loads. I tripled the recipe, so that I would have a good amount of detergent to see if I liked it. I have used it a couple of times and so far the results are good. I think I could become a homemade detergent girl all the time.  

2 comments:

Belinda said...

That does sound pretty easy! How much money do you think it is saving you with that triple batch compared to what you would have to buy in Tide?

Amy said...

I haven't totally priced it out yet. I read some where on-line that this recipe costs about $.02 per load and Tide is approximately $.30 per load. I bought the ingredients back in Novemeber when I was going to do this project orginially, so I don't quiet remember the cost of everything.