Laundry Detergent Recipe

It's easy to make your own laundry detergent, plus the cost of using it is about a tenth the price of using store-bought laundry detergent. Also, you can make a laundry detergent that is free of dyes and perfumes. Here's how you make this cleaner yourself.

Laundry Detergent Ingredients

• 1 bar of soap (e.g., Ivory™)
• 1 cup washing soda (sodium carbonate, sold in the laundry section or compare prices online)
• 1/2 cup borax (sold in the laundry section or compare prices online)

Make Laundry Detergent

1. Cut your bar of soap into small pieces. You can use a knife or you can grate the soap with a cheese or vegetable grater.
2. Process the soap, washing soda, and borax together in a food processor or blender until it is well-mixed. You want to avoid breathing in the dust produced by mixing the ingredients, so be sure to put the cover on your appliance.
3. Store your laundry detergent powder in a airtight container.
4. Use 1 tablespoon of homemade laundry detergent per load of laundry.

Notes

• You can add essential oils (e.g, lavender) to fragrance the detergent, if you like.
• Avoid using this laundry detergent on wool or silk, since it may damage these natural fibers.
• The homemade detergent will do about 48 loads of laundry. If you compare the cost of the soap, washing soda, and borax with what you would have paid for commercial laundry detergent, you'll see you're saving a lot of money (about $0.03/load for homemade laundry detergent versus about $0.30/load using Tide™ or about a tenth the cost).