Homemade Laundry Detergent

I've been taking a look at how to make my own household products lately. The idea is to cut down on all the extra chemicals and pollutants that come in the usual products available for sale at the store. A bonus is that homemade products can sometimes be cheaper. Well, cheaper in dollars, but if you factor in the time that it takes to research and actually make this stuff, it might not be as cheap as you'd think.
We were getting low on laundry detergent, so I decided that my first project would be to make some of this at home. There are numerous recipes and write ups available on the internet, but pretty much all of them use the same three ingredients: borax, washing soda, and bar soap. You can make liquid detergent or powder. I chose powder because it's easier to make (you don't have to heat anything up). Most people say that these mixtures are fine to use in regular or high efficiency washers.

I was able to find borax at most of the local stores, but it ended up being cheapest at Target. I was able to get a box of 20 Mule Team Borax for about $3.50. Washing soda proved much more difficult to locate. I checked the grocery stores, Target, and even Walmart, but it was nowhere to be found. I had to order it from Amazon.com and ended up paying $9.35 to get a box of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda delivered to my door. The last ingredient, bar soap, is available just about anywhere. If your main goal is low cost, you can get several bars of cheap soap for a couple dollars. Since I wanted to cut out all unnecessary chemicals, I decided to spring for some more expensive natural bar soap. When I placed my Amazon order for the washing soda I also purchased 6 bars of Dr. Bronner's Lavender Bar Soap for $24.87 (about $4.15 per bar). This soap is not cheap, but I also wanted to try it out for regular use too.

Before starting this adventure, I hadn't come across borax or washing soda. I had used Dr. Bronner's liquid soap a long time ago. Dr. Bronner's soaps are supposedly environmentally friendly, so I wasn't worried about them. But I wanted a little more information about borax and washing soda. I found most people agree that washing soda isn't really damaging to the environment, so I don't have any reservations about using it. While checking out borax, I found some people claiming it is environmentally friendly and others claiming that it's not. Some people are fine using borax and some aren't. I decided to go ahead and try it, since most of the detergent recipes use it. At some point I'll try eliminating borax in case there are long term effects, but for now I think it'll be ok.

Most of the recipes I found were pretty similar. They only varied slightly in the relative amounts of borax, washing soda, and grated bar soap. The general consensus was 1 cup washing soda to about 1 cup borax, but then it varied from 1/2 cup to 1 bar to 2 cups grated soap. I used a cheese grater on a bar of Dr Bronner's, then dumped the shavings in the blender for a bit, and came out with about 1.5 cups. Since these bars are expensive I only used 1/2 cup in my mixture, along with 1 cup borax and 1 cup washing soda.

The next variable was how much of the mixture to use per load of laundry. The appropriate amount in the different recipes I looked at varied from 1 to 4 tablespoons per load. I'm using 1-2 tablespoons depending on the size of the load. I've done about 6 loads so far, and everything is working just fine. I'm not out working in the mud or anything, so my clothes don't get too dirty, but they seem to get clean to me. When I take them out of the washer they usually have a faint smell of lavender, so I'm pretty sure it's working. Sometimes the lavender smell is stronger and sometimes it's pretty weak. I think this has to do with how much soap there is in the mixture when I pour it into the detergent cup. Everything is mixed up well, but you're not going to get the same exact concentration every time. I think 1/2 cup of the bar soap is the minimum, so I might add more next time to make sure there's enough in every load. When I pull the clothes out of the dryer I can no longer smell anything, they just smell like clothes. I've also started not using dryer sheets, so there is a little more static than usual. But that's an issue for another time.

Overall I'm pretty happy with my homemade laundry detergent. I'll probably adjust the recipe as time goes on, but I think I'm going to continue making my own. I like to think that it's going to be better for me, my wallet, and the environment.