Homemade Laundry Detergent

Last fall I bought all the necessary ingredients to make my first batch of laundry detergent.  Then I went back to work and the laundry detergent never materialized.  Until today.

The recipe is fairly simple, and so are the instructions.

1 bar of soap
1 cup washing soda
1/2 cup Borax

Grate the bar of soap and and put it in 4 cups of hot water and stir until dissolved. (So yeah, I cooked mine in a saucepan over medium heat…it works.)  

Fill a 5 gallon bucket half way with hot water, add the soap water, Borax and washing soda.  Stir well, until it’s all dissolved.

Fill the 5 gallon bucket to the top with water, stir and let sit over night.

The next day fill a laundry detergent bottle half full with the mixture, add warm water to fill the container and shake well and you are in the laundry business.   This 5 gallon mixture is diluted 50/50 each time it’s used, so you end up with 10 gallons of laundry detergent.  Pretty simple huh? 

This of course will last us a LONG time, washing roughly 180 loads of laundry per batch.   I have enough ingredients left over to make another 5 or 6 batches in time to come.  All for less than $7.   Pretty thrifty, eh?