When I first volunteered to teach people how to make their own laundry detergent for my local church, I had never
made my own laundry detergent. This
assignment led to a crash course of sorts of detergent ingredients and ways to
mix them together to get just what I wanted.
There are a ton of recipes online for making your own
laundry detergent. I got this recipe
from http://www.diynatural.com. Another great
resource is http://www.tipnut.com. There are
several options for liquid and powdered detergent depending on your needs and
preferences.
The soaps generally do not leave any residual odors on your
clothing after going through the wash.
It's perfect for those of you who have perfume or dye allergies, or know someone who does. If you are like me and prefer that your clothes smell fresh and clean,
you can always add some essential oils to the mix. The amount of oil you use will depend on how
strong you want your clothes to smell when you are done. I recommend experimentation; a lot of
experimentation.
For the powdered soap, I used only three ingredients:
20-Mule Team Borax Detergent Booster, Arm & Hammer All Natural Super
Washing Soda, and Fels-Naptha Laundry Bar and Stain Remover.
I found everything I needed in the laundry section at Fred
Meyer. Wal-Mart didn’t have Fels-Naptha,
but they did have Zote, and it came in already grated laundry flakes. (I’ll
explain why this may be important later)
To begin, I grated the entire 5.5 ounce bar of Fels-Naptha using a standard cheese grater.
If you’ve never worked with this before, it has a pleasant
scent and looks a lot like cheese when it’s freshly grated; but I don’t
recommend eating it.
And, if you are prone to injury, like I am, (here is the
important part) please be very careful when you are grating it, or just buy the Zote that is pre-flaked. While grating this product, I ended up taking off a chunk of one of my knuckles. I have also heard that the fine-shredder attachment on a Kitchen-Aid mixer works well too, with minimal room for injury.
The finished soap was very chunky after just one grating, so
if you want to make finer particles, put them in a food processor and pulse
until the chunks are fine pieces. Or maybe try using a zester or finer grater
to get smaller pieces. My sister-in-law
also recommends using a stick blender.
Just make sure to wash all of the tools you use prior to
using them with food again. In fact, if
you can afford it, I would recommend buying dedicated tools for the laundry
detergent (hint: think the dollar store).
COST BREAKDOWN:
While researching just how much all of this was going to
cost, I ran into a gamut of laundry detergents.
There is far more out there than I realized before. Prior to this, I would just go to the store
and pick out the laundry detergent that I preferred and leave. I didn’t realize the cost variance for each
brand of detergent, let alone the differences between powdered and liquid.
Here is what I found:
When not on sale, Tide tends to be the most expensive brand
on the market, depending on the size. For
my comparison, I am using the Tide High Efficiency (HE) style of detergent as
it will work in both front loading and top loading laundry machines, and Tide
used to be my favorite brand.
The smallest HE Tide Laundry Detergent I found was just for
30-loads of laundry. The total cost for
each load came out to $0.27 per load.
If you get the tide pods, you can get 31 loads of laundry
for $8.97. That makes it $0.29 per load.
Ultra Tide was 102 loads for $17.97. That’s a whopping $0.18 per load.
Here’s what I spent:
Figures based on using 8oz of the Soda and Borax and
a whole bar of Fels-Naptha for one batch of detergent:
|
A&H Washing Soda:
|
$3.49 (55oz) = $0.06/oz
|
x 8oz =
|
$0.48
|
Borax:
|
$4.99 (76oz) = $0.07/oz
|
x 8oz =
|
$0.56
|
Fels-Naptha:
|
$1.33 (5.5oz)=$0.24/oz
|
x 5.5oz =
|
$1.33
|
(One batch makes approx. 26
loads of laundry.) One
batch =
|
$2.73/26 loads = $0.09 per load!
|
I live in a house of three people, including one
toddler. Luckily we aren’t too hard on
our clothes. Here’s our yearly break
down using this soap recipe:
Type
|
Cost/load
|
Loads/week
|
Total cost/week
|
Total loads/Yr
|
Total Cost/Yr
|
Homemade
|
$0.09
|
5
|
$0.45
|
260
|
$23.40
|
10
|
$0.90
|
520
|
$46.80
|
Tide HE
|
$0.18
|
5
|
$0.90
|
260
|
$46.80
|
10
|
$1.80
|
520
|
$93.60
|
My household would save 50% on laundry detergent just making
it on our own! And that’s just my
family; the more laundry you do, the more you’ll save.
OTHER DIY CLEANING
SUPPLIES:
I don’t know about you but I hate scrubbing the bathtub and
shower. My sister-in-law turned me on to
this cost saving and super easy technique to never have to use elbow grease on it again.
Buy a small scrubber, the kind with a handle
that you can fill with soap. Make a
mixture of equal parts white vinegar and dawn liquid dish soap. Put it in the handle of the scrubber and keep
it in the shower. It’s that simple. After you have showered, and everything is
moist and easier to be cleaned, wipe the shower/tub with the scrubber. Mildew and dirt comes off like magic!
Scrubber $1.00
Small Dawn liquid dish soap $1.37
White Vinegar (super cheap) $2.00 (for about a gallon)
Cost is $4.37 initially but because you are using so little
of it, the cost savings is exponential.
I also like making my own carpet freshener. I don’t know about you but I think the
commercial carpet fresheners always have a very fake and chemical scent to
them. Here is how to make one that you
will actually enjoy:
Find an essential oil that you enjoy the scent of and get
some baking soda. Add the oil to the
baking soda until you are satisfied with the strength of the scent. Mix it very well and loosen any clumps that
form during the mixing process. Sprinkle
the mixture on your carpet, leave it for at least five minutes, then vacuum as
usual.
As an added bonus, you could add the same essential oil to your
laundry mix to add scent to your laundry.
In addition to the detergent recipe above, there are several
liquid detergent recipes that you can try. They can be found here:
My amazingly frugal sister-in-law also had this to add:
For hand soap, get a foaming dispenser, add some liquid hand soap or
dish soap to cover the bottom (please don’t measure…that just makes for more
dishes) then fill the rest up with water. Put the top on, shake it
up, and you’re good to go!
Enjoy and have fun experimenting!
