There are many recipes for homemade laundry soap online. Some help you make a “liquid” type that you cook and others are in the powder form. I used to be very hesitant to make my own things like household cleanings. Call it laziness, because I now realize it was. I used to make all sorts of excuses: “I don’t have the time”, “It couldn’t possibly clean as well as store bought”, “It is not cheaper at all!”and even (shamefully) ” I am not some do gooder environmentalist hippie!”
Then my friend over at SimplyShan told me to just try making homemade laundry soap. I agreed to give it a go.
I have been making my own cleaning supplies such as degreasing wipes, for a little over a year now and I am very impressed with how well they clean as well as well as how much cheaper they are!
To demonstrate how much cheaper homemade laundry soap is, let me show you my calculations.
An average box of 100 loads of laundry soap (powder form) is $18.00. This makes each load 18 cents.
To make my own 100 load (or more!) detergent its costs:
$3.24 Washing Soda
$3.84 Borax
$0.97 Fels-Naptha soap
$1.19 Ivory soap (3 bars)
I used one bar of Ivory, One bar of Fels-Naptha, less than 1/3 of the Washing Soda and less than 1/3 of the Borax I bought so that means:
$0.74 for Washing Soda
$0.95 for Borax
$0.97 Fels-Naptha soap
$0.40 for one bar of Ivory
The total for that is $4.90 = about 3 cents a load. I will probably get more than 100 loads out of the amount I made as well, making it even cheaper.
How well does it clean?
Amazing!
I was seriously worried it wouldn’t. I was blown away by not only the cleaning power, but also how fresh my clothes smelled. The cool part is, it can be used in HE washers since it is so low sud. Don’t let the low suds fool you. It is the ingredients that clean, not the bubbles, as fun as they are!
I suppose you are ready for me to tell you how to make this wonderful concoction since I have you convinced to give it a try, huh? Well here you go!
To make homemade laundry soap, You will need:
2 cups washing soda
2 cups borax
1 bar fels-naptha (can be bought in the detergent aile)
1 bar ivory soap
Start by using a fine cheese grater to grate the bars of soap.
Add them slowly to a blender or food processor and grind into a finer powder. It should look like this before you put it in the blender:
Add the soap to a bowl and add your washing soda and borax. Mix well.
Store in an airtight container.
Use 1 Tablespoon for regular loads a 2 tablespoons for heavily soiled loads. Remember, since you are making this yourself, you may find you need more or less of an ingredient for your water/cleaning jobs. Feel free to play around with the recipe!
Are you going to give this a try or do you already make your own cleaning supplies? I would love to hear about it!
The post Homemade Laundry Soap appeared first on Saved By Grace.