(Thank you for all of your concerns for me this past Friday. I feel grateful for such friends I have found in my readers.)
Let’s get the Homemaking for the Modern Mama week started off with a bang! Here’s this week’s first money saving, natural approach to taking care of your home: homemade laundry detergent.
There are a few reasons for you to get excited about making your own laundry detergent:
- You will save a considerable amount of money. (I’ll get to that soon.)
- It is a satisfying process to make something my hand and then use it for your family, knowing every ingredient that will be touching your family’s skin.
- You use very little of it per load (1-2 TBSP), so it lasts a really long time.
- It takes roughly 5 minutes to make. Done and done.
- When you involve your children in the making process, they are excited to help with laundry.
Shall we begin?
The recipe I’m about to share is what we’ve been using for some time now. It is the most basic recipe out there for homemade laundry detergent.
You’ll need:
- Borax
- Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda (not baking soda)
- Ivory soap (you can also use Fels-Naptha)
- lavender essential oil (optional)
- fine grater
- Grate your soap bar.
2. Here’s the ratio you want to remember: 1 to 1 to 1. Got it?
Mix together 1 grated bar of soap to 1 cup of Borax to 1 cup of Arm and Hammer Washing Soda. Stir. Or have your helpers stir. (Even round-tummied toddler can do this!)
3. Stir for a good 5 minutes. It is fine if the grated soap is a bit bigger than the two powders you added.
4. Add an essential oil to the laundry detergent. This is optional, but adds a nice fragrance to the powder. I used my favorite lavender, about 15 drops. Stir again.
Can you believe it? In about 5 minutes you just made your own laundry detergent! I don’t like to waste time so I triple the recipe whenever I make it. I repurposed a metal pail to be our laundry detergent container. It sits on the top rack of the laundry closet where I pull it down, do a quick stir, then I scoop out 2 TBSP of detergent for my large or heavily soiled loads. (Remember, you can use 1-2 scoops per load.)
A few important things to consider:
- Homemade laundry detergent is perfect for all washers, including High Efficiency (HE) front loading washings because the detergent is a low suds detergent.
- This is a great alternative to store-bought chemical and dye heavy detergents. Perfect if you have sensitive children. (Or just want a gentler detergent for your children.)
- This recipe makes roughly 32 ounces of detergent. That is enough for 64 loads and that is before doubling or tripling the recipe.
- This detergent works beautifully! I haven’t had any complaints whatsoever with my homemade detergent compared to the store bought stuff. It works wonders!
Now for the money savings.
(Things all found at the grocery store. The Borax and Washing Soda are in the laundry section.)
Borax- $3.99
Arm and Hammer Washing Soda- $2.29
3 pack of Ivory- $.99
Ingredients total- $7.27
So that is $2.42 per batch ($7.27 divided by three) of homemade laundry detergent, about 64 loads. Each batch should actually turn out cheaper because you still have a lot of the Borax and Washing Soda leftover that you will turn around and use the next time you make your detergent.
That means each load is 3 cents.
Compared to the Costco detergent I used to buy (which was roughly $17 for 120 loads) it was 14 cents a load.
Now I’m saving 11 cents a load which equals $13.20 in savings per 120 loads!!!
For each family the extra money ($13.20 in my case) can really come in handy. For our family, I’ve used the money we’re saving to put towards changes in our food, like raw milk from a local farm/creamery. It is something we’ve felt passionate about for some time but not passionate about the extra cost. Now we’ve been about to buy it weekly, knowing that we’ve creatively moved money from one department of our homemaking to another.
What would your family do with the extra money? Are you going to commit to trying your own laundry detergent??
the sleepy time gal
I’ve made my own laundry on a number of occasions and the first couple batches I made were similar to this. My current recipe includes some baking soda and Oxyclean, which seem to boost it a bit. I use whatever bar soap I happen to have on hand and process it in my food processor so I don’t have to bother with the cheese grater. Eh, there’s never any extra money when it’s all said and done!
That is awesome that you make your own detergent! I have a friend that just uses baking soda for her clothes as well. Thanks for the tips!
Wonderful recipe, and I love the fact that it could save me a significant amount on money in the long run! One question though… I’ve heard that there is somewhat of a risk when using Borax… something about reproductive problems and birth defects. Is this an issue for you?
I haven’t heard of that. I know it is the main ingredient for most homemade detergents, but if you’re concerned there are other simple recipe out there. You could find something that is just right for you.
Other than that, we haven’t had any negative issues with our detergent. It is a staple recipe out there for detergents. Good luck!
amazing! i’d heard it was cheaper, but never seen the math. thanks for taking the time to work it through. and so glad you are feeling better, if on a new journey.
p.s.: what did you do with that majestic table full of soap?! i see a splash of water, lots of suds, and some letter-writing with fingers and bubbles up ahead…
wow, never thought of making laundry detergent! Lavender oil sounds good in it
Wow, thanks for putting that out there! I’ll give it a whirl and see how it goes. I suppose it’d be cloth diaper friendly, right? I’m always leery of trying new detergents because I don’t want to cause trouble with my diapers, but surely this would be okay?
I’m glad you mentioned that– this recipe is supposedly incredible for cloth diapers. I’ve read that many places.
Love it!
Thanks!
I’ve made almost this same recipe before & it’s fantastic!! After it ran out, I got lazy and bought some fancy ec-friendly detergent and was very disappointed. Had to switch back. There really is nothing like homemade!
I am going to try this … never heard of homemade laundry detergent… before…
Mixing things is fine but children should not be involved with household chemicals. Period. Keep the borax away from kids. Children should never come in contact with borax and adults should wear gloves when handling it. Borax is a great cleaning aid but it is also a contact irritant and in larger doses can cause reproductive harm.
Do not let children handle household chemicals.
Good advice–thanks for sharing.
Nicole,
I make my own laundry detergent, too! I use a similar recipe but use the Fels-Naptha. But I use my food processor grater blade to make quick work of the grating — ha, ha. My recipe calls for melting the soap flakes (so my grating doesn’t have to be too fine) and adding water–I made a 5 gallon bucket in March and it’s just now coming to an end. I like the Fels Naptha because it’s all-natural and it is great at taking out stains! I don’t uses essential oils b/c they’d evaporate over time–I don’t want to waste ‘em!
Love this series…and, especially glad you’re feeling well.
Love,
Jessica
I’m planning to try the Fels Naptha with the next batch. And maybe I should try the food processor as well!
I really wanted to like fels naptha, but the smell was horrible and my girls could not stand wearing their clothes. It has a petroleum like smell. I wasted a whole batch of detergent. I try to stick with ivory or solid castille soaps. Just a heads up! Great post, thank you!
I’m not sure why Fels-Naptha had a petroleum smell because the original formula (which contained a petroleum ingredient) is no longer used.
A MSDS sheet is located here: http://www2.prosarcorp.com/dialconsumer/
Granted, I would not inhale the grated soap or ingest it…but I’ve used it now for a year and have had no issues. Plus, as a cancer survivor I’m pretty careful re: chemical dangers, toxins, and carcinogens and Fels Naptha’s MSDS sheet hasn’t raised any red flags for me.
Thanks for the recipe I can’t wait to try it. So far I’ve been to two big name grocery stores and I can’t find the washing soda. Where do you get yours?
I got mine at a grocery store here on the east coast, Wegman’s. Walmart or another big store should carry it on their detergent aisle. Good luck!
Thanks!
I got mine at Publix. Its in the laundry detergent isle. Best of luck!
This is awesome – I’m totally trying it. Could you (or would you) use a food processor to grate the soap?
We’ve been using this recipe for about two months now and love it! I’ve even used plain Dove soap (didn’t have Ivory on hand) and it worked out fine. Thanks for sharing how you make yours!
I’ve never even heard of making your own laundry detergent, what a great idea! We will definitely be trying this. My youngest son has super sensitive skin, so this will be perfect. And we’re penny pinchers around here… Thanks for sharing! Can’t wait to read your other tips this week
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Does it matter if you put baking soda in it? i keep seeing some with and some without. and using this in a front load HE washer..do you put it in the drum or in the pull out thing where u always put it??
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I do a similar laundry soap, but use Fels-naptha laundry soap instead of ivory. I grate my soap in the food processor. I make my own washing soda from baking soda and buy baking soda in big 50 pound bags that I purchase at the feed store.
I was getting very excited about making my own laundry detergent, but then I read up on borax and now I am kind of hesitant? My son has asthma and I read that it can cause lung irritation? I really have to be careful with anything I use in the house so that is why I did research before I made my own detergent. There are some people that say it is perfectly fine, but other people that say it is not? Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
Worried mommy!
I can only speak for my experience and that is that it works well in our home. I know it is widely used in the organic, natural body care world for facial creams and such which I have not yet tried.
But as detergent, I make it, and then have it upstairs with the laundry things on a shelf, so for your son, I don’t think it would be a problem.
Don’t know if you’ll get this reply because this comment is a couple months old, but I think that laundry detergent w/ Borax would be fine for your son as long as he is not actually handling the Borax/detergent before it is diluted by the washer. Borax is very strong stuff when you clean with it, and you should probably wear gloves when handling it and try not to inhale it, but it is so diluted by the washer to begin with because of the small amount you use, and then rinsed out, that I wouldn’t be concerned about it. If you don’t add any essential oils to this recipe, the clothes come out with literally no odor whatsoever. As long as his only contact with it is wearing the clothes you wash with it, he should be fine.
Lauren thank you very much for the reply I have yet to try the homemade detergent out.
Thanks!!!!
i use almost this add Oxyclean well the store brand and the napa soap it’s so great also i have taken a table spoon in a little hot water and put it in my steam cleaner it dose a wonderful job on carpets as well and i did the same to clean my kitchen fools works great this stuff is amazing and everyone in my house used to use all free and clear no one has a reaction to this not even my 15 month
You could just microwave the ivory soap. It will puff up in about 1-2 minutes on high (which both the kids and I love to watch) and then be a fine powder when you put it in and smash it. It looks like the clean up is the biggest part of this project! Oh – experiment with just 1/3 of a bar at first. It gets pretty big.