Make Your Own Laundry Detergent

DIY Laundry Detergent

These are the 3 ingredients I use

I make my own detergent not for the money saving benefit (which I like anyways) But for the waste saving benefit.

My husby and I have three gorgeous girls. They create monster loads of laundry. So we were using Monster loads of detergent.

I noticed how much on recycling day. Between the milk jugs and the laundry detergent containers I filled a whole blue bag... more plastic. 

I thought if I made it at home like so many other things I do at home I could save on how much we recycle.

The recipes I found were very easy. Soap, Washing soda, and borax. boiled and funneled into containers. I did this method for quite some time. The boiling was kind of time consuming and messy.

so I adapted and its fun:)

I cut a bar of soap into 4. 

I get my kids to put a piece on a big dinner plate and put in the microwave for 40 seconds. The picture below is what happens. Since I have 4 pieces the kids take turns. Pushing buttons and watching soap explode is fun.

 This is what it looks like when I, not my kids take it out of the microwave. It has never been hot but I don't want them burned!

 Then it crumbles so easy. If you don't like the microwave just finely grate your soap:)

 I use a empty large tin can and put soap in it.

I add one cup of baking soda. (washing soda is cheaper and you get much more, but I heard baking soda is less caustic so I went for it)

 I add one cup of borax.

 I mix it up

 And I put a Tablespoon into each load:)

I have no idea if this is high efficient friendly. I do know it is very cheap. I bought 36 bars of soap for 10$ a six pack of baking soda for 6.65 and a box of borax for 5$. I have enough supplies to do over a thousand loads of laundry and the waste doesn't even fill up a grocery bag:)




As with ALL cleaning products KEEP OUT OF THE REACH OF CHILDREN particularly if you are using recycled food type containers!!!!