One of the homemade cleaning supplies we have adopted is to make homemade laundry detergent. I have to admit, the task seemed daunting at first! All that grinding of soap and tons of ingredients. But then my dear one started battling seasonal eczema and I started looking for a cheap laundry soap alternative that would be less irritating to his sensitive spots. So, after some Google searches we started making our own powdered laundry soap a few years ago. And we love it!
I combined a few different recipes I found on the internet to make the recipe we now use. All you need is Borax, Washing Soda, OxiClean, a bar of Fels Naptha soap and essential oils if you want to use them. We use orange essential oil in ours. ☺
This recipe only takes about 10 minutes to mix up and it makes approximately 48 loads worth. It is frugal and it smells great, with or without essential oils mixed in! And it is gentle enough for my dear one’s sensitive skin as well as the baby’s. This recipe fits well into a couple of mason jars easily too, this is not a huge batch. We actually usually mix this recipe up at 3x the amounts listed so we only have to make soap once every 3 months or so. We are lazy like that.
I really like that we are using a homemade product that cuts down on the number of chemicals we are using to wash our clothes. And I love the scent of the Fels Naptha- you can call me crazy!
So without further ado… the soap recipe!!
Homemade Powdered Laundry Detergent
1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
1/2 cup OxiClean
1 Bar Fels-Naptha
Essential Oils(optional)
I usually start by grating the Fels-Naptha into fine crumbs or ribbons into a bowl or bucket. You can use a cheese grater, your food processor or a tool like this Stanley Surform shaver we found at Lowe’s.
We tried the food processor and it didn’t grind it up well enough. And it wasn’t handling the work load very well. I don’t think my Cuisinart would hold up to that kind of abuse! We also tried our cheese grater and there was soap stuck in it for days. It took me lots of elbow grease and creative scrubbing to get it out! This nifty little tool does a great job and grates the soap into fine little ribbons.
Into the container with the grated Fels-Naptha, add the borax, washing soda and OxiClean. Mix until all the little gold ribbons are mixed in well. You can add 20 drops of orange oil to the mixture, if you choose to, and mix well.
Pour your mixture into an airtight container . Use 1 tbsp per load of laundry and enjoy the frugal freshness!
Have you tried making homemade detergent? What has your experience been?
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