Friday, March 08, 2013

Laundry Detergent

One of my new years resolutions is to try making things before buying them. I know I can't do this with everything but it has been fun making pizza sauce, bread, and rolls. I have also tried making homemade cleaning supplies and decided to try laundry detergent. I have a friend who gave me a recipe and this week I decided to make it. There are several benefits to making the detergent, less chemicals and a lot cheaper! I made this batch for less than $5...and it would fill 3+ regular sized laundry containers. It works in the high efficiency machines and you use only 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup per load. How is this not a great idea?

It starts with grating Fels-Naptha soap into water and let it dissolve.
Used a cheese grater for the soap
Allow soap to dissolve
 The rest of the recipe calls for borax and washing soda:

 After everything is dissolved you pour it into almost 3 gallons of water and mix it together.
Just water in the pail
Mixture added to water
Once everything is mixed together you let it sit for 24 hours. After letting it sit you stir it up and can add essential oils, I chose Lavender, for a fresher smell. Once the essential oils are mixed in it is ready to use.

I think I need more empty laundry detergent containers

I think we will be set on detergent for a while :) And I used the juice container as a funnel to help transfer the detergent from the bucket to my containers.

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