Homemade Laundry Detergent

Several of you have asked about my homemade detergent. Here is the recipe. It has worked great for me. I wash my cloth baby wipes and cloth diapers with it and haven't had any problems. I find the only hard part to making your own detergent is the grating the soap part! If you don't mind that part, it is a cinch!

Laundry Detergent Recipe

Lately, given the way the economy is for us all, I have become all things frugal. I decided to give making my own laundry detergent a try. I made it up a few days ago and have been using it since and I LOVE it. It works great and it's going to save TONS of money. I found the recipe at Living On a Dime. The recipe is really simple:

Mix the following:

1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda ($2.79)

1 cup 40-Team Mule Borax ($3.79)

1 bar Fels-Naptha soap or Zote Soap (grate the bar into fine powder first) ($1.29)

1/2 cup OxyClean (Optional) ($8.69)

The great thing is that you only need 1-2 tablespoons per load depending on the size. I tend to always have huge loads so I marked 2 tablespoons on my handy scoop that came in the box of Oxyclean.

The only annoying part out of the whole process is grating the soap bar. When I made the recipe I tripled it, so I had to grate 3 bars. After making the triple recipe I still have over half a box of Arm and Hammer Washing soda and Borax and 3/4 of the tub of Oxyclean left. If you like a realy flowery or fruity smelling laundry detergent you may need to add some kind of essentials oils to your mix. I have also heard you can use lever 2000 or some kind of body soap bar instead of the Fels-Naptha soap to get the desired smell. I like the clean smell of this detergent and I always use a fabric softner so I get the good smell from that. (By the way, I could only find my ingredients at Kroger.)

My next project is to make my own household cleaners like vinegar and water for my all purpose cleaner and olive oil and lemon juice for my furniture polish. Maybe I'll sew up some cloth napkins next? Now, go and make your detergent and save some money!