Laundry detergent. Major after thought, right?
Who cares? What’s cheap? What have I been buying for a bazillion years? When I decided to clean up my act in the laundry department (pun totally intended) I tried several different DIY recipes that involved 5 gallon buckets, lots of time and took up lots of space.
I then got completely over that and I bought a good clean laundry detergent for a while, but it cost a lot. It would bother me to buy it even though in particular seasons of life, I just needed something I didn’t have to make.
About 2 years ago I came across this recipe from the Wellness Mama. Easy. Peasy. Lemon. Squeezy. It takes me around 5 minutes to make and takes up just a little room on our laundry room shelf. It also costs me about $.09 a load. LOVE IT!
Check out my fancy schmancy video or the recipe below. This cannot get more simple. For real, y’all!
Ingredients
- Castile Bar Soap
- Borax
- Washing Soda
- Food Processor for blending
- Storage Container
- Plastic Cup
Instructions
- Grate the bar soap or mix in food processor until finely ground.
- In a large bowl, mix 2 cups washing soda, 2 cups Borax and 1 cup grated soap.
- Put all ingredients in storage container or jar and shake.
- Use 1/8 to 1/4 cup per load of laundry.
If You’re Not Feeling It
If you find yourself in a season where you just don’t feel like making detergent or have some limitations, here are my recommendation for clean and non-toxic options. For laundry detergent, my recommendation is Planet Ultra. For a stain remover, I would recommend BuggyLove No Wash Stain Remover. Be really careful on what stain remover you get, they are dreadfully toxic. Ecover is a great alternative to your traditional bleach. It is has no chlorine and gets the job done.
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What is your favorite DIY laundry detergent or your favorite laundry products you purchase?
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11 comments
That homemade laundry soap does look super easy and affordable!
It is! On both fronts!
I have been using the borax and washing soda but instead of Castile soap I use a couple tablespoons of Sal Suds – any thoughts on why or why not to use Sal Suds?
Hey there Summer! Sal Suds works great too. My only minor concern would be that the Sal Suds contain Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and castile soap does not. So if you are trying to be sulfate free, you may want to ditch the Sal Suds.
Thanks! It is super easy with the sal suds but probably not that much more work to do the soap and probably has the clothes smell better than Sal Suds that doesn’t have any smell. Thanks so much!
I gave this a try this weekend, however I think maybe I did something wrong. I blended the soap in the Blendtech – but maybe I need to use a food processor. The soap was clumpy and kind of stuck to the clothes. Maybe also need to just let the water fill all the way up and put the soap and powders in and give it time to melt and then put clothes in once washer is full of the water. I must not have gotten the soap fine enough.
Hi Dr. Summer,
I’m so glad you gave it a try, but totally bummed that it didn’t work for you. Maybe the food processor would do the trick? We’ve never had that happen in our several years of making this recipe so I’m perplexed at how to lead you via trouble shooting. My husband puts it in the water first to let it dissolve, but I sprinkle it on top of the clothes so it should be okay either way. Since this is the Wellness Mama’s recipe, I’m going to pass along the link for you to check the comments of that post to see if anyone ran into that issue and what they did to resolve it.
I hope it helps!
Kacy
http://wellnessmama.com/462/homemade-laundry-detergent/
Thanks Kacy! I’m not perplexed at all that something like this happened – I am the girl that in the past used salt instead of sugar in a recipe – and this is just one example! I will try again for sure!
Girl, I know how that goes! You got this! 🙂 Let me know if you master it!
Tried again, and the food processor definitely is the key! Blentech blender is not the way to do it – but now I have it down! Thanks!
I’m so happy to hear that! I had every faith in you! 😉