homemade laundry detergent

For a while I had been wanting to try making homemade laundry detergent. There was really no science to my method. I googled around until I found a recipe for it that included the fewest ingredients I had to purchase. I already had some things like washing soda, borax, etc. at home. I only had to buy soap and I was able to get it for free with a coupon I had.

I landed on this recipe and it has been the best detergent. I have no clue the source, I quickly printed it and there was no link on it.

– 2 cups borax

– 2 cups washing soda

– 1 bar of ivory soap

Place bar of soap in large microwave safe bowl. Microwave for 90 seconds. The result will be a dry, brittle, fluffy looking substance.

Add this plus 1 cup of borax and 1 cup of washing soda to a blender. Mix well until you have a powdery mixture. Slowly add the last cup of both borax and washing soda and continue mixing until blended well.

Pour the soap into a tight sealed container. Use 1 tablespoon per load. We have a high efficiency, front load washer and we just add a tablespoon to the detergent compartment. If you have a top-load machine I’d assume you just add the tablespoon into the barrel.

Numerous times my dear Al has said he’s not sure if the clothes are coming clean, I think that’s just because there’s no scent on the clothes from a typical detergent. We’re so used to clothing smelling so strongly from the detergent after it’s washed. I put his doubts to the test after we ran the color run.

I had one container of a natural, store bought detergent in the house still. At that moment I guess I doubted my homemade detergent and decided to wash the color run clothes in the store bought. After the wash was finished about 80% of the clothing was still colored. So then I decided to wash the load again with my homemade detergent. This time, the only color left in the load was on the sweatbands, which I just tossed.

I haven’t had any issue of things not coming clean with the homemade detergent. Also, I pre-treat nothing. Don’t use stain remover, stick stick or spray or anything. Everything just gets tossed in. And I’m a nanny so by the end of the day I have paint, dirt, slobber, mushed food and many other things on me. Nine times out of ten everything comes out.

This detergent has been awesome. I actually made this back in May and we still have at least two more months worth of it. That’s 5 months of detergent at no cost since I already had everything (obviously, I forgot to take a photo of the finished product). Out of pocket it would be less than $10, which is a steal for 5 months of detergent. Do you have a different homemade recipe you use? Share if you do!