Make Your Own Laundry Detergent

I came across some ways to save more money. One of them is to make your own laundry detergent. As it is, we don't buy the name brand kind but it still adds up. If you make your own, it can cost less than 5 cents per load! Plus it doesn't have any chemicals in it, it doesn't have plastic waste (like the liquid detergent bottles. The ingredients come in minimal wrapping and cardboard boxes). There are all kinds of recipes for it and they say that if you have very hard water (like we do. We haven't bought a water softener yet) or well water you have to play with the numbers to avoid dingy clothes but in our test load, we haven't had that problem. We used
1 cup of borax (found at Target, Ace Hardware, Walmart, etc)
1 cup washing soda (found at Menard's, Ace Hardware, Walmart, etc)
2 bars of laundry soap (we used Fels Naptha because that was recommended to us but there are other kinds)

You grate the soap ( using a cheese grater) and mix all the above ingredients well. Then store in an airtight container (we put ours in a glass canister but some people like the mason jar method. We almost filled a 1.5 liter canister with the finished product so you may need several jars.) You only use 2 tablespoons per load. This recipe produces a powder detergent (that is safe to use in HE washers) but there are other recipes out there that produce a liquid detergent.

We did a test load with very dirty rags (that have been washed without stain remover previously and the stains are well set in). It smelled very fresh and no powder clumps were found in the washer. The rags turned out pretty clean. Not perfect but I would say better than our previous detergent.

We are so excited to use this all the time. I recommend it for anyone looking to save some money (they say that depending on how much you go through and what brand of store bought detergent you buy, you could save 300 dollars a year) or just looking for clothes that don't have chemicals (they add chemicals to the liquid ones to keep them the right consistency. I assume they also to the powder but I can't verify that.)

Now we just need nice weather and a clothesline so we can start drying outside!