If you have been following my blog, you know that I recently decided to make my very own Homemade Laundry Detergent. I followed this step by step photo
tutorial by
Sew Much Ado as suggested by my pal JV. After seeing
JV's price breakdown, I knew I had to give it a go. I went out and about to purchase the ingredients I needed to make the laundry detergent.
{Sorry the pic is foggy.. it was cool in the house and HOT outside.}
If you live locally you will be able to find all the ingredients you will need in Whitesburg. Food City has everything but their price on borax was a little higher than Walmart. Also Walmart has the large boxes of baking soda and I didn't see those at Food City. They did have the small boxes though. Either way, we have everything you need to make some for yourself within a reasonable distance.
After purchasing the supplies, I came home and sat down with them, the recipe, and my receipts to do a little math. I found that you will need $18.30 OOP {out of pocket} to start out if you purchase the same items at the same places that I did. However, you will have some supplies left over. So really you would be paying $15.67 for 161 loads. Which is approximately $0.09 per load. Compared to Tide at $0.18 a load.
If you wash two loads of laundry a day for a year with the homemade detergent instead of Tide you will save $65.70. You can view my entire price breakdown
HERE.
Next, I was on to the actual detergent making process. I pulled out my shredder and got to work on the the bar of Fels Naptha.
{Looks like cheese, huh?}
Next, I mixed in cup Borax, 1 cup Super Washing Soda and 1/4 cup Baking Soda.
Some people put theirs in a food processor to make it finer, but so far this works fine for me.
I've been using two tablespoons per load. I just put the detergent in first, turn on the hot water and swish it around a bit. Then once all the powder is dissolved I switch it over to cold and load the washer with clothes.
I was skeptical, I didn't expect it to work as well as other detergents, but honestly it works really well. I have no idea about the long term effects on clothes, but so far.. we've been using it for a week, all I see is clean clothes. This detergent doesn't lather like Tide or Gain, but when my clothes come out, they are really clean.
I was sort of worried about the strong sent of the Fels Naptha but once the clothes are washed and dried they just smell like clean clothes to me. There wasn't a strong scent on the clothes. Of course, you can use any soap you want. You don't have to use the Fels Naptha, I just used it because that is what the recipe called for.
My SIL Melanie of
Sweet Shoppe Soaps uses any and all of her soaps to make her laundry detergent. I'm gonna do the same on my next batch. Simply because I have tons of her soap and it would be more cost effective. I will let you know how it goes.
{This is the pineapple soap... it smells GREAT!}
If you would rather have a liquid detergent, you can check out The Simple Dollar's tutorial on how to do that,
HERE.
