DIY – Laundry Detergent
Last night I made up another batch of homemade laundry detergent.
It is quite easy to make and is more economical than store bought.
I had some bars of Octagon soap that I had previously bought online, and I grated them up. (I also recruited my husband to help in the grating process). I just used my Pamper Chef hand held cheese grater to grate up the soap.
One bar of Octagon gave me the necessary 2 cups of grated soap. (I have used Kirk’s castile, Ivory, Fel Naphta, and Octagon before. My sister-in-law thought the Fel Naphta soap – really helped to remove the barn smell from their clothes).
To the 2 cups of grated soap I added 1 cup of washing soda (not baking soda) and 1 cup of borax, mixing it together. I used Arm & Hammer Washing Soda and Mule Team Borax. You may have to look around in stores to find them, but they are available. I “rubbed” the grated soap in my hands to break it down further into smaller pieces, so it would dissolve better in the laundry. Sometimes I have even blended it finer in a regular blender; this works to blend it all evenly together as well. I stored it in a plastic covered container, so it would remain dry.
When doing laundry I add 1-2 Tablespoons of the mixture per load of clothes. It doesn’t seem like alot, but it is enough. I believe we use too much laundry detergent. When my daughter got her new water purifying system, the installer, told her not to add any laundry detergent for the first few times she did laundry. He said there was enough left over inside the fibers of the fabric to get them clean. (And we wonder why we are getting more sensitized to chemicals).
If you like making your own homemade hand soaps, you could probaly 2 cups of grated soap in your laundry soap as well. Just be careful when laundering microfiber with a high fat soap, as it has a tendency to clog or coat the fibers over time. I like to use an oxygen based laundry detergent when washing microfiber.
Be creative and make your own soap. Most of the bar soaps out there will work, it really depends on how much fragrance you want in your laundry detergent. I actually prefer little or none. When I blended the batch of Ivory detergent, I found it was the most “choking”. It seemed to give off finer particles on blending than the others, but it was the easiest to grate. The Kirk’s Castile seemed to require the most “muscle” power in grinding.
February 5th, 2010 at 9:32 am
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February 8th, 2010 at 10:30 am
I am glad you were able to use the information, it isn’t difficult to make some of your own products, and they are healtier besides. You can also do allot with baking soda and vinegar as cleaners.