A More In-Depth Look At Making Your Own Laundry Detergent

A little while ago I made a post about making our own laundry detergent. Like many of my earlier post it was large on enthusiasm and short on content, so here is a better look at how we made our own dry or powdered laundry detergent:

For starters we used Dr. Bronner’s Lavender Pure Castile bar soap. It is already scented so we don’t have to add anything for fragrance.

We have a few old cheese graters so we chose the one with a longer “small” grating side.

Grate the soap as finely as possible

This should make about 2 cups of soap

Your other ingredients are Washing Soda and Borax. Add a cup of each into the mixture. Borax isn’t entirely safe so be careful not to breath it in or get it in your eyes.

Mix up your ingredients and voilà you have homemade laundry detergent.

Cost

I’ve long ago recycled the receipts, as we have been using this stuff for a while now, but I can give you an estimate on roughly how much these items cost based on our location.

Borax 40¢

Soap $3

Washing soda 43¢

This will make 32 loads so it comes to 15.6¢ per load. A leading brand would run you about twice that, though coupons are more common for these items and you could very easily get them cheaper. Can you get them cheap enough to push them below the coast of the homemade? I’m not sure. But buying the above ingredients in bulk you can lower the cost some.

So there you have it. Safe, cheap, and good for the environment.