23 February 2012

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I saw a post like this on pinterest and decided to give it a whirl. I find myself doing smaller loads and more frequent loads because the coin-op services we have now are just not cutting it with my normal HUGE loads! So this homemade detergent made up for all of the problems I've been having! And this even works with HE washers!

This detergent is awesome! It only cost me about 18 dollars and I have a huge tub of it. The best part? I only need about 2 tablespoons worth to get my clothes plenty clean! I use one scoop from scoop that came with the knock-off oxyclean powder needed for the detergent mix. So maybe with your kids dirtiest things you can do a scoop and a half.

Now for this easy list of ingredients:

1 box (4 lbs, 12 oz) Borax -- you can find this in the detergent isle.

1 box (3 lbs 7 oz) Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda -- detergent isle.

1 box (4 lbs) Arm & Hammer Baking Soda -- cooking isle.

1 large bar pink Zote soap -- found this at home depot.

Optional: oxyclean (about 3.5 lbs total) -- I bought the store brand and it works great. this isn't required but I'm a little OCD about clean clothes.



Now for the mixing:

First, take the Zote bar and a cheese grater and get going. Grate the whole bar, it sounds like it would be hard to grate but it's actually really easy. It will look like pink cheese. :)

Grab a 5-gallon bucket or a box and line with trash bag. Pour all ingredients in the bag and mix as you go. It will be fairly strong smelling as you mix but it's a nice home fragrance for a while. Don't worry the Zote soap shavings will dissolve in the wash really fast. You will NOT get pink spots on your whites!

After gathering all of the ingredients (which is super easy because most are at the super market) it only took my a few min to throw together and I've been loving mine for about 3 months now!

I then divided mine into a large container and a smaller one to take to the laundry room and back. This will last you forever. One person said it lasted her 8 months! And she was using it with a whole family!


Try it out and tell me what you think! Personally, I will never go back! I got tons of such great detergent for so cheap! Under $20? That's a deal I can't pass up!

2 comments:

  1. Wow what a great idea, especially for people with kids since they do so much laundry. Thanks for visiting my blog!!!

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  2. Where did you get your 5 gallon bucket? I'm so excited to try this Kelsey! Thanks for sharing.

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