Posted by Dana Silvey
One of the things that we do here on our farm is learning how to be more self sufficient. Part of this is making things our self. This allows us to save money and to live a healthier lifestyle. For this post I want to show you how we make our own laundry detergent. I have made both the powder and liquid detergents but find the liquid to be more cost effective. Just to quickly break down the cost for you: one batch of the liquid detergent makes a five gallon bucket and usually lasts me about seven months (I usually do a load of laundry each weekday and maybe two on Saturday). The cost for making one five gallon bucket is about $3.70, so divide that by seven months and you get about $.53 a month!
Let me first give you the recipe then I will show you some pictures of us making the detergent: (This recipe makes a five gallon bucket. If you want to just make a small batch to try it out I will put those directions at the end.)
- 1 cup of Borax
- 1 cup of Washing Powder
- 1 bar of soap (Fels Naptha or Zote)
(For the recipe I will show you below I used one bar of Zote. I usually will use half a bar of each: Fels Naptha and Zote. I have used just the Fels Naptha before. You just need the equivalent of one bar of soap.)
*All of these ingredients are found in the laundry section at Wal Mart
* * * *
Grate your bar of soap with a cheese grater. Fill your 5 gallon bucket halfway full of hot water. Heat 4 cups of water in a pan on top of your stove. Add your powders to this mixture and stir until they dissolve. Now add your grated soap and stir until it is completely melted. Add this soapy mixture to your 5 gallon bucket and stir well. Now fill up your bucket the rest of the way with hot water and stir well. I set the lid on top as I let the mixture cool. As it is cooling I occasionally stir the mixture (maybe every hour or so). As it cools it will begin to gel, so stirring occasionally will keep it from globbing up. If your husband has one of those paint stirring sticks that attaches to the end of a drill you can use that to get it mixed well. Once it is cooled you are ready to pour it into containers or you can leave it in your bucket. I use old laundry soap containers that my mother-in-law saved for me. In one container I fill halfway with my soap mixture and fill the rest with water. I use this on my not so dirty clothes. Then the other bottle I fill all the way with my soap mixture. I use this on my boy’s dirty clothes.
Use 1/2 to 3/4 cup for your regular top loader machine and about 1/4 to 1/2 cup for your High Efficiency machine. This detergent is low sudsing so you will not see a lot of suds like you would from store bought detergent.
Step 1: Grate your bar of soap with a cheese grater.
Step 2: Fill your 5 gallon bucket half full with hot water.
Step 3: Heat 4 cups of water in a pan on your stove.
Measure out your Borax and washing powder.
Step 4: Add powders to the 4 cups of water.
Step 5: Stir until completely dissolved.
Step 6: Add grated soap and stir until completely melted.
This is what your mixture should look like.
Step 7: Add soap mixture to your bucket.
Step 8: Stir well.
Step 9: Fill the bucket up the rest of the
way with hot water and stir well.
Step 10: Stir mixture as it cools.
When it has cooled it will be gel-like.
Step 11: Now you can pour your mixture into your bottles
or leave in your bucket.
A Note About Pre-treating Stains: The only thing I use to pre-treat stains is "just plain soap". What I mean by "just plain soap" is soap that has just two basic ingredients: Sodium Cocoate and Sodium Tallowate. These are the basic ingredients in just plain lye soap. A lot of the ingredients in our soaps and cleaners are harmful to us. The soap I use is Rosa Venus. It does have a third ingredient, fragrance, but this is one of the closest to “just plain soap” that I have found in the stores. I’m sure there are others out there, but this is the one my grocery store carries. I keep a bar of this and a small bowl of water by my washer. When I have a stain to treat, I dip the soap in the water and rub it on the stain. I repeat this until the stain is wet and soapy. The Fels Naptha soap also works well for pre-treating stains.
Small Batch of Laundry Soap
3 pints of water
1/2 cup Borax
1/2 cup Washing Powder
1/3 bar of soap (grated)
2 quarts of hot water
2 gallon bucket
Heat three pints of water on stove top. Add powders and stir until dissolved. Add grated soap and stir until completely melted. Add two quarts of hot water to your bucket. Pour in your soapy mixture and stir. Fill your bucket up the rest of the way with hot water and stir. As the mixture cools stir occasionally as it begins to gel. Pour into your containers. You can fill one container halfway with your soap mixture and fill the rest with water. This you can use for clothes that are not heavily soiled. Fill another container with just your soap mixture and use for heavily soiled clothes.
