Homemade Laundry Detergent

Items you will need:

- A 5 gallon bucket

- 1 Cup washing soda

- 1/2 Cup borax

- 1 bar of soap (any kind, I used Dial's Gold Bar)

- 2 Cups of your favorite powdered laundry detergent

-A cheese grater

-A one gallon stock pot

Directions:

-Fill your stock pot with approxamately 1 gallon of water and bring almost to a boil

-Grate the entire bar of soap (make sure kids and hubbies know this is soap not cheese!) set this aside

-Fill your bucket with about 3 gallons of hot tap water

-mix 1/2 cup borax and 1 cup washing soda into the bucket with hot water (disolve completely)

-once the water is almost boiling remove from heat then pour all of the grated soap into the stock pot, stir until completely dissolved.

-add the 2 cups of laundry detergent to this mixture in the stock pot, and stir this until it is dissolved as well

-Now pour all of the stock pot ingredients into the big bucket, stir to mix it all.

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The next part is to wait. Cover your detergent with a tight fitting lid, and let it sit for about a day. I made mine at about 7:00 pm and uncovered it the next day at about 4:00pm. At this point it should be a watery gel like substance. Stir it up with a spoon, your hands or a hand held mixer (which its what I used) I then used a funnel to fill an empty bottle with the detergent.

Use about a cup full for regular washers, and about 1/3 cup full for high effenciency washers, (this is something you can experiment with, I am still in the process of figuring out my prefrences too!)

*You don't have to use the Powdered detergent. This contains an enzyme that helps prevent it from smelling if it sits a little too long in the washer.*

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Here is the cost breakdown:

I went to Walmart, and here is what I spent,

Washing Soda- $2.77

Bar of soap- $1.32

Borax- $2.98

ALL powdered Detergent- $3.97

__________________________TOTAL $11.04

Plus I bought a funnel for .58 cents

and a five gallon bucket $3.97 with lid .96 cents

I just finished my first loads of laundry, and so far so good! I'd love to hear from you if you have a recipe that you use to make detergent!

The Simple Dollar website has a very similar process, and actually does some tests (mustard on white t shirts) with this detergent vs. Tide, check it out too if you have a chance! I'd also like to thank my friend Mati W. who walked me and some other ladies through this process!!