Homemade Laundry Detergent

So I teamed up with my San Antonio BFF to try a laundry detergent recipe she found on Pinterest from Frugally Green. She is totally addicted to Pinterest and since I am now a SAHM right along with her, I am going to try some of these projects too. We have also decided, along with Tia from Story of a Girl, to add a tab to the MHO website where we will showcase actual Pinterest Projects that we have tried.

Okay, so now to the good part. I'm going to show you, with pictures, exactly how we made this detergent. There were only a few items required and it cost less than $10 from Wal-Mart.

What you need:

Borax

Washing Soda (Not baking soda)

Fels-Naptha Soap (You can also use Ivory Soap instead)

You can find these side by side in Wal-Mart. In the same aisle as the laundry detergent.

 

We also used a 5 gallon bucket to make our batches in our old/empty laundry detergent containers. We used those to put this soap in (easier storage). We also used a cheese grater (like the kind they use when you order a salad from Olive Garden. That works the best as the soap is hard to grate). You also need a pot to boil the water and a larger measuring cup and a funnel to funnel the soap into your container.

 

  

Okay, everyone ready?

 

 Grate 1/3 of the bar of Fels-Naptha Soap. Save the rest of that soap for a later date. Put your soap in a pot of 6 cups of water and heat on low and stir till the soap melts.

 

  

 

Then add 1/2 cup of Borax and 1/2 cup of Washing Soda.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups of hot tap water into your 5 gallon bucket. Add soap mixture into bucket and stir.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now add 1 gallon of hot tap water plus 6 cups to the bucket then stir.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now let it sit over night. It may thicken up or get clumpy. From the article we read, she said you could throw it in a blender or just stir it up. We stirred ours up and it was fine. In the picture above, it shows two batches worth since we are splitting the detergent.

 

Below you'll see what we found after it sat overnight.

 

 

It was a little clumpy, but with a good stir it was fine.

 

 

We used the funnel to pour the soap back into our old containers.

 

 

Two batches allowed us to almost fill three of these containers above. It cost us less than $10 to purchase the items to make this. We could still make one more batch with the Fels-Naptha and probably twenty more at least with the other two items. You can do the math if you'd like. Jaime and I will keep track of how many loads of clothes we can do with these two batches. I believe I can use less detergent as I have a High Efficiency front loading washer, but we will see. You should use 1/2 cup of detergent with a normal washer and 1/4 cup of detergent with a High Efficiency washer.

 

As always, thanks for reading!