DIY Laundry Detergent

Welcome to what I plan to be a three post blog series that reaches out to my hippy, tree hugging side. I wouldn't say I'm a huge hippy, but there are several practices that I've adopted over the years to become more frugal. Back in 2011, I left the world of teaching (side note, I'm looking for a job....are you hiring?). The Woodman's job isn't a highly stable (or highly paying) job so we had to start thinking about how to cut costs. One day I just sat down and googled "How to cut costs" and came across one of those lists of 15 things you can do to save money. One of the items listed was to make your own laundry detergent. That makes sense....it's crazy expensive and we HAVE to wash clothes (unless we moved to a nudist colony...then we'd have an extra expense of sunscreen). I looked up all kinds of recipes. Ok, this technically isn't a Pinterest post because was it even around back then? Back to my story- found a recipe that was cheap and simple. Made up a batch and found the stinkiest, grossest clothes I could find in the house- the Woodman's two day old sweaty gym clothes. If the detergent can get that clean, then we have a winner! Two and a half years later, I'm still using the same recipe, so it must have worked! 

 Here's what you need to make your own laundry detergent. Keep in mind, this is bare bones stuff. It doesn't have a "scent" to it. The scent is just yucky chemicals that you really don't need, so I'm ok with no fancy smells. I do cheat a little sometimes with good smelling soap though. Items needed:

I usually buy a 10 pack of Ivory soap. If you want a scent, get the aloe soap. Cost- roughly $8

Washing soda. I find this in the laundry section of Kroger. Cost- roughly  $5

Borax. Can be found with the washing soda in the laundry section. Cost- roughly $5

That's it! I spent about $20 and was able to wash clothes for close to 7 months before I had to replenish any of the ingredients! I was even doing lots of loads because I had a two year old Peanut at the time! 

The recipe is 1 bar of grated soap, 1 cup of washing soda, and 1 cup of Borax. Mix well. Use 1 Tbsp. of detergent for each load of laundry. I have a HE machine and it's perfectly safe for them! Will also work for standard machines.

Now here are my notes on how to make the detergent easier. At least a week before I want to make my first batch of detergent, I take all the bars of soap and grate them. I used to use a hand held shredder and this would KILL my arms. I then got smart and began using the shredder blade on my food processor! I grate one bar at a time and put it into a Ziploc baggie. I close the baggie up about halfway and then continue with the rest of the bars of soap. Set all the half closed baggies aside for a week and let them dry out. The drier the soap, the easier it'll crumble.  Then, when I'm ready to make my detergent, I grab a bag of shredded soap, throw it in my food processor, add a cup of Borax and a cup of washing soda, and then process away! It'll crumble down to a fine power. I store my detergent in an OXO Good Grips container.

I make 3 batches of the detergent at a time and it all fits in this container!

To show how much we were (and still are) cutting corners, that Christmas I spray painted a bunch of mason jars, made my own labels, and made up a ton of this detergent to give as gifts. I may be mistaken, but I think everyone enjoyed it!

And that's it for part one of my hippy, tree hugging posts. Part two will either be about all natural face cleaning or about going no 'poo. (Not no #2....but no shampoo). Which one would you like to hear about next?