Homemade: Laundry Detergent

This is a homemade laundry detergent recipe I got from the Duggar Family website
How Much Does it Make: 10 gallons
Cost: Approximately $10 to get you started but breaks down to approximately $2 for every 10 gallons of detergent

Ingredients Needed:
4 Cups hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup Washing Soda
½ Cup Borax

(I found these items in the laundry aisle of my local grocer)

Recipe:

• Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.


• Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.


• Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)


• Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.
  


• Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.


• Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)


• Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)

(you can use Ivory, Sunlight, Kirk's Hardwater Castile or Zote bars in place of the Fels-Naptha. Don't use heavily perfumed soaps. Alicia and Barbie used only the main 4 ingredients)

Alicia's Take: I have been pleased with it! It's so cheap and easy to make! When we first made it, I had a bunch of my previous detergent to finish up, so never got around to using it for awhile. It's not very appealing to the eye if it's been sitting awhile (can be a little clumping and starts to separate) so when I ran out of my old detergent, I was hesitant to give it it's first go. But since then I've been using it exclusively. With a baby in cloth diapers (and with a baby in general) you go through more detergent than ever and it's been fine to use on his clothing and linens as well.

Barbie's Take: I have been very pleased with our homemade detergent. It was quick and easy to make, and easy to store. We keep the main 10 gallon bucket in our garage and we simply fill up an old laundry detergent container whenever we need to. I love that it has only a mild scent to it....nothing overwhelming (by any means!!). It definitely get our clothes clean and it saves us so much money. I will continue to make this detergent in the future.

Pros:
-very inexpensive
-fairly easy to make
-it works
-good for the environment

Cons:
-could potentially be a pain to store the left-over detergent