I have become the epitome of frugal: I just made my own laundry detergent. I decided it sounded like a fun project to do today, so I hunted down the ingredients to make it, and voila! I know have a ton of homemade laundry detergent stored in a trash can down in my basement. I decided the liquid homemade laundry detergent would be my best bet, so that’s what I decided to make.

Before I started, I gathered up the following supplies:

• A pot to melt the soap in
• Bar of soap (I chose Ivory soap because it is non irritating)
• 1 gallon jug
• Trash can to store laundry detergent in
• 1 box of Washing Soda
• 1 box Borax
• Long handled spoon to stir mixture

Where to buy washing soda? It was a little tough to find, but my local Meijer carried it in the laundry detergent aisle. I called 1-800-524-1328, put in my zip code, and it told me where I could find it.

Here is the recipe for dry laundry detergent:

• 2 1/2 ounces soap bars, grated into flakes (Approx. a half a bar of soap)
• 1 cup borax
• 1 cup washing soda

Here’s the homemade laundry detergent recipe for liquid laundry detergent:

• 1 bar of soap of your choice
• 1 cup washing soda
• ½ cup borax

My first step was to almost boil about 4-5 cups of water, and shave the bar of soap into the water, stirring occasionally. Once that was done, I let it sit on the stove while I poured three gallons of hot water into my trash can. I then measured out 1 cup of washing soda and 1/2 cup of borax. I took the hot soap mixture, added it to the water in my trash can, and stirred until it looked pretty evenly distributed. Then I slowly added my 1 cup of washing soda until that was dissolved, and then did the same to the borax. That’s it. Fairly simple. I’m going to let it sit and get cool before I try to use it. It’s pretty liquid right now.

I have a front loading high efficiency (HE) washing machine. I’m going to use about a half a cup of this for my laundry loads. I’ll let you know how well it works!

Posted under How To, Save Your Money