Homemade Laundry Detergent

To make powder laundry detergent you just need 3 ingredients:

1) Borax
2) Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (different that just baking soda; found in the laundry/cleaners isle)
3) Fels Naptha soap bar - finely grated (You can also use Ivory soap, Sunlight bar soap, Kirk’s Hardwater Castile, and Zote. Don’t use heavily perfumed soaps.)

Note: I went a purchased a cheese grater from Ikea (because their cheese graters are my absolute favorite to use and easy to clean) and dedicated that one to my laundry detergent making. :)

Per one bar of grated Fels Naptha, add 1 cup Super Washing Soda and 1 cup Borax. Mix well and store in an air tight container.

Use 1 tablespoon for lightly soiled loads, use 2 tablespoons for heavy soiled loads.

For various recipes to make homemade laundry detergent check out this web site. There are recipes to make liquid laundry detergents.

http://tipnut.com/10-homemade-laundry-soap-detergent-recipes/

You can purchase the washing soda most anywhere for around $3-$4 a box, Borax for about $4-$5 a box, and the Fels Naptha, I have found those at Fred Meyers for $1.23 per bar or at Winco for $1.06 per bar.

But is it Really Less Expensive?

Is the laundry detergent a cost saver? How do the numbers on this add up? Well I am a person who likes to know what I am spending and if my efforts save me in one way or another. This is one of the areas that I wanted to know if I was actually saving money. We do a lot of laundry and I make double batches of this soap and knowing that the time spent doing this was a savings for my family was important to me.

Here are my calculations:

The cost of making the above recipe of laundry soap was .71 cents. That was amazing to me! With this 2 gallon size recipe you will have enough to do 64 loads of laundry. That translates to about .01 cent a load.

How Did I Figure This Out?

Here is the breakdown of my costs and how I came up with those numbers (I am using the prices I paid for these items and you may find your price varies some based on what you pay):

Fels Naptha: $1.12 for a 5.5 oz bar. The recipes says use a 1/3 of a bar. I calculated 2 oz. just to make the math a little easier. The cost of the Fels Naptha per batch is: .40 cents

Washing Soda: $2.23 for a 55 oz. box. This came to .17 cents per batch. I calculated how much per oz (2.23 divided by 55) and then weighed a half cup of washing soda (4.2oz.) and multiplied my per oz. price by 4.2

Borax: $3.27 for a 76 oz. box. This came to .14 cents per batch. Did the same calculations as above, however a 1/2 cup of borax weighs 3.5 oz.

For the final numbers I have .40 + .17 + .14 = .71 for 2 gallons of laundry detergent.

The math of this came from http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/laundrysoap.htm