I’ve been meaning to do this for several years and just never bit the bullet and did it. But yesterday when I went into the garage pantry to get another jug of laundry detergent, I found there was none there. Ooops. Thought I had one more. Sooooo, no time like the present, right? So I quickly emailed Heather who started doing this last year and she said (or at least I heard), “It’s a cinch!” She explained it was just 3-4 ingredients and easy to prepare.
I needed a regular bar of soap (anything without moisturizers can work — but always nice to use something more “pure” like castile soap or Fels Naptha), Borax and Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (also known as Sodium Carbonate/soda ash).
My sister-in-law, Julie, had given me a bar of rose-scented Dr Bronner’s castile soap for Christmas, so I had that on hand (*free!). And then I stopped by Vons on the way home to buy the Borax & washing soda. Borax, check. $4.50. Washing soda, nope.
I dropped the kids off at home with Brent, spent four minutes talking to him while grating the castile soap on the small side of a box grater and then I went to Albertson’s to get the washing soda. Nope.
Target. Nope.
Standing frustrated in my third store, I pulled out my phone, went to Heather’s post and clicked through to the other recipes she had linked and found THIS one that uses baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) instead of washing soda. I said, “Heck yeah,” knowing I have that huge Costco bag of baking soda (*free!) and headed home.
I dumped all the soap flakes into the “dry ingredients” pitcher for my Vitamix, added a cup of Borax and a cup of baking soda and set it to spinning for a bit. At that point Brent said, “So what was that stuff?”
I said, “The soap I was grating while talking to you?”
He started laughing and said, “No wonder Kira was so upset when she tasted it.” HA. That’ll teach that girl to ask before she eats the grated “cheese.” Or maybe not.
And laundry detergent made! This recipe makes about 3 cups and you use 1-2 Tablespoons per load.
I decided to run hot water into the washer first and added the detergent. As soon as it looked dissolved, I switched to cold and then threw in a load of towels. At that point, things got funnier.
I wanted to add in vinegar because several sites had mentioned it as a fabric softener and overall cleaner for your washing machine. I have a very old washing machine and I texted Heather to see if I just put that into “the hole” for the rinse cycle. She said yes. But when I was putting in the load, I noticed that the “hole” I was thinking of said bleach only. Hmm. I texted. She said, oh. Hmm. Well, it’s usually in the agitator, maybe you don’t have one. I said OH, THIS FILTHY THING???
Ha.
Evidently, I’ve never used fabric softener. Evidently, my mother never used fabric softener. Evidently, no one I’ve ever met uses fabric softener, because I was clueless that this cup shaped thingy was supposed to be used for some actual purpose. I cleaned it out, dumped the vinegar in and shut the lid.
By the end of these exchanges, I was pretty much ROFL.
It seems to have worked well. I’ve got two loads through at this point and things smell good. I’m going to do my bathmats next — one of them is white and so a good test about how clean things will be. And then a kid’s sleeping bag that smells like… well… unshowered kids.
Bottom line, it was a cinch. And it makes me feel a bit like Wonder Woman. Always nice. Will report back in soon.
UPDATE 2/17: I’ve just finished the last of my first batch of laundry detergent (used it all in 9 days). I certainly didn’t notice any problems with it. I wasn’t overly thrilled with the whiteness of the bathmat, though. But other than that, everything smelled and looked good. And I’m pretty sure everything was a bit softer, using the vinegar for a rinse.
So I finally made it up to WalMart today and SURE ENOUGH they had the soda ash (A&H Super Washing Soda)! YIPEE!!! They also had bars of Fels Naptha for 97 cents. So figured I’d try that this time.
Interestingly, the Fels is much waxier. It made curly-ques as I grated it and that should been a big warning to me, but it wasn’t.
So I dumped everything in my dry VitaMix blender again and started it spinning. But it got really clogged up and soft and yuck. FAIL. When I went back to various blogs, everyone describes “stirring and stirring and stirring and stirring some more” to break up the grated Fels Naptha. I’m guessing that’s what needed to happen and that the VitaMix got things too warm and therefore sticky. So I’ve got kind of a clumpy batch this time, but I’m going to give it a shot to see how it goes.
I used 1 bar Fels Naptha, 1 cup borax & 1 cup soda ash (washing soda).
I have one concern: The ingredient list for the Fels Naptha was decidedly vague. It gives the impression of being relatively “simple” and “natural” and yet while I was working with it my eyes even stung a bit and the warnings on the package clearly indicate some strong stuff in there. So am wondering if I’m doing this at all to save the earth, if Dr Bonner’s isn’t just the better way to go. Though I know those bars cost a lot more than $1. It will be interesting to see if I notice any difference in the clothes since Fels Naptha claims to be a stain remover. I also just read something about using warm water. I hate to do that because that ruins all of the money saved by making my own detergent, but I may put the detergent in a bit of initially run hot water to dissolve it first… we will see.
Fabric softener?? I must have.
Awesome! You are wonder woman Joelle! : ) I am using the recipe from the Duggar Family website recommended by Mendy.
http://www.duggarfamily.com/content/duggar_recipes/30455/Homemade%20Liquid%20Laundry%20Soap-%20Front%20or%20top%20load%20machine-%20best%20value
It tells you to dissolve the bar soap in a sauce pan in water. Maybe an option to try next time. Love the blog post!