Homemade Laundry Detergent

This past week, I have tried my hand at making homemade laundry detergent. This project was a great success. I am a mother of four children under six years of age, so you can imagine how much laundry I do on a daily basis. We also use cloth training pants for our two year old, and cloth diapers for our one year old.

We have a Whirlpool Cabiro high efficiency top load washing machine. I searched online for a low sudsing detergent recipe. I found that most of the recipes were similar, so I combined several of them and came up with one that made the most sense to me.

My Homemade Laundry Detergent Recipe




I grated one bar of Ivory Soap.



Then I pruned my Sharon Roberts Lavender. I boiled my cutting in six cups of water for about five minutes, to add natural fragrance to my detergent.



I removed the lavender cuttings from the water, then I added my grated soap and whisked until it was completely melted.



I pour three gallons of water (including the six cups of the lavender scented soap water) into a six and a half gallon bucket, then I stirred thoroughly until it was combined. I then added one cup of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda and one half of a cup of 20 Mule Team Borax, one at a time stirring thoroughly after each addition. I added two more gallons of water, and stirred again. Then I let the solution sit overnight.

I have been using the detergent for a little more than a week, and it works great. My clothes are clean, and they smell wonderful. The recipe also worked very well with my machine. The consistency of the detergent is almost that of raw egg whites, it is kind of slimey. I don't mind because it works well, I am saving money, and I am not filling our earth with plastic bottles.

It took me less than thirty minutes total to make five gallons of detergent. That is about the same amount of time it would take me to drive to the store and buy one bottle of detergent. I was going to take photos of the actual process of making the detergent, but my three oldest daughters were very interested in what I was doing. I explained to them how to make the detergent and why it is important to reduce our consumption of goods, I also explained how making your own detergent is better for the earth. It was a very busy thirty minutes, and there was no time for photos.



I add one half cup of detergent to my wash. I put the detergent in a water proof container so I can shake it up before I use it.