Homemade Laundry Detergent
Day two of the make-your-own-household-staples is upon us. I’ve been reading about homemade laundry detergent for quite awhile, but hadn’t gotten around to making any—but this week my purchased detergent started running low and so I mixed together some homemade. There are MANY recipes out there with various ratios of ingredients. I went with a combination of recipes and based mine on the package size of the ingredients, as that seemed most sensible to me.
I’ve used the detergent and so far, I like it. Clothes finish feeling and smelling clean, which is always a good sign. I like that the fragrance is very light, rather than heavy like most store-bought detergents. Detergents made with the recipe I chose are also easier on plumbing and washing machines. If your house has older plumbing (like mine), you know that detergents that produce heavy suds can back up drains. Suds are also problematic for high efficiency washers. This detergent produces few suds and is gentle on the plumbing, machines, and clothing.
There are just four ingredients: baking soda, borax, washing soda, and mild castile soap, all of which can be found in any store that sells detergent (most are in the detergent aisle; I found the soap in the soap aisle).
7 cups washing soda (a full 3 lbs 7 oz. box)
7 cups borax
2 cups baking soda
3-4oz. bars Kirk’s Castile Soap (or Fels Naptha or any mild castile soap)
Measure washing soda, borax, and baking soda into a storage container. Grate all three bars of soap with a fine cheese grater or the fine holes on a box grater and add it to the container. Mix all ingredients well with a plastic or metal spoon. The making is done!
To use, just add two heaping tablespoons of detergent to each load of laundry. This recipe should last for 100+ loads of laundry, costing less than 8 cents a load, which is less than half the cost of most store-bought detergents.
Sustainable dwelling can be cost effective!
I'm keeping my detergent in this vintage all detergent pail that my sister found for me at Farm Chicks this year…the perfect receptacle! I'm sure it hasn't seen detergent for decades. There were no holes in the metal, but the bottom of the bucket was rusty. I scraped the rust with a wire brush and painted it grey to keep my detergent from damaging the bucket further (and to keep the rust out of my clothes). Perfect! Repurposing back to the original purpose--not bad.
