Homemade Laundry Detergent

If you missed my posts on homemade laundry detergent you can find them here and here. I just realized that I never posted the recipe for it. What a dunce!

Here is the recipe for the homemade laundry detergent...

You will need...
(1) 5 gallon bucket & lid
(1) bar soap (not the glycerin type!!!)
1 Cup Borax
1 Cup Washing Soda

Step 1. Grate the soap into a pot using a cheese grater and cover with water. Boil on high, stirring constantly, until the soap is melted.

Step 2. Add the Borax and Washing Soda to the mix until dissolved (you can add more water if necessary so feel free to use a big pot)

Step 3. Pour the mixture into your 5 gallon bucket and fill up half way with hot tap water and mix thoroughly.

Step 4. Fill the rest of the way with hot tap water until your bucket is filled and mix again.

Step 5. Let it cool, put the lid on and let sit overnight.

You will have to cut the detergent with water, equal parts, before using. It will have the consistency of egg whites when you pour it so don't worry about that! Use about 1/4 cup for an HE washer and about 5/8 (just a little over half a cup) for a regular washer.

I ordered some plastic bottles and lids from US Plastics to go ahead and bottle all of my detergent. For twenty half gallon bottles and lids was $17 and change, including shipping. You can just recycle your old laundry detergent bottles too if you just rinse them out to save even more.

I had concerns while making this that my pot would then taste like soap, but this is not the case, so no worries! I even used one that was nonstick and still no residue or after taste!

I have been using my homemade laundry detergent for months and love it. I love that I don't have to worry about whether or not I need to spend $10 this week on a bottle of detergent and then get irritated when my husband uses more than what I think he should and thus "wasting" it! That is completely my opinion but if you are watching your pennies and trying to cut costs, this definitely helps!!

Check here for a post on homemade dishwasher detergent. I haven't done this yet, but I'm thinking about it. I'm really thinking about just washing all of our dishes by hand since I have AT LEAST ten bottles of dish detergent that I've gotten for free.

Now, hopefully later today/tonight I will be posting some more information on how I cut corners in order to shave from our budget, especially on groceries and some great information on how I keep organized.