Sunday, January 16, 2011

Making Your own Laundry Detergent

During the last year or so...perhaps it coincides directly with the birth of the twins...we have cinched our budget belts a little bit. Can you relate?

One of the biggest money savers to date is that we now make our own laundry detergent. It's been born from a trial and error of other recipes.

It's so simple AND I use it in our HE washing machine...Yeah!

All you need are:

1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
1 cup 20 Mule Borax (or other brand)
1 bar Original Ivory Soap


1) Shave the bar of soap into whatever container you are going to be keeping your detergent in. We use a plain GLAD tupperware container and it works perfectly.

2) Add 1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda and 1 cup Borax.

3) Put the top on your container and shake what your mama gave you! :) This helps break up the soap shavings and mix it all up.

4) For washing, use 2 Tbsp per load.



That's it! Easy peasy, and takes less than 5 minutes to make up.

Plus, the storage is phenomenal...so small with such cleaning ability!

I'm still working on finding a cheaper and better fabric softner and when I find it, I will share it with you...



handmade projects

4 comments:

Deb Jones said...

A 1/2 a cup of white vinegar will replace your fabric softener. Just add it in the rinse cycle. Your clothes won't smell like vinegar either. Love your blog!

Dollar Store Crafter said...

WOW I am going to give this a try !!!

Lauryn said...

That is soooo cool! Do you remember where you got the arm and hammer and borax and how much it was? How long goes the detergent generally last once you make it to store? ANd also how do you make the soap into shavings? Thanks!!! Love your blog!!!!

Our Suburban Circus said...

Hiya Lauryn!
I got our Washing Soda at Kroger. It was at the WalMart, too. It was about $3.50 or so. This amount makes 40 loads for an HE washer, or 20 for a regular. It stores forever. And, we shave our soap by hand in a cheese grater. Ivory soap is so soft, it's really easy. We did once use the cuisinart because we were making a triple batch...but it's noit really needed!


Hope this helps you out! Let me know what you think after you use it.

:)

Meg