Homemade Laundry Detergent

A while back, I found this pin for DIY detergent. (Isn't Pinterest grand?) It seemed like a cool idea (and I even knew a couple people who had made their own), but it wasn't the right time. We had just moved to GA and only had a small percentage of our things. I knew we'd be buying a house and moving [again] soon, so it wasn't a priority. I could have done it, but I just didn't want to deal with it at the time.

Since then, I've thought about it a lot. The real appeal to me was the money-saving aspect. We spend about $10 every month or two on detergent. Now, that's really not a lot, but it is a reoccurring expense. The idea of making my own detergent for about $20-30 and having enough to last months sounded pretty good to me. (Especially knowing that we'll have another mess-maker in the house in a few months!)

Armed with the list of ingredients, I headed to WalMart. I'll go ahead an admit that I bought everything from their site-to-store option. Apparently our store doesn't carry Zote soap (but they do have Fels Naptha, which is similar), so that was my only option to buy it. Anyway, it was nice to just go in and pick up everything I needed, except for the bucket which Joe had gotten for me beforehand. I didn't take any pictures of the process because you can find it on the website I pinned. They are better pictures than I would have gotten anyway. ;-)

Everything but the Borax!

This stuff is so easy to make, guys. Grate [or microwave] the soap, and mix the baking soda, super washing soda, borax, oxiclean, and purex crystals [optional] all together and you're done. I layered it like the directions suggest, but you could also just stir it all up together if you've got enough strength. I put mine in a 5 gallon bucket (with a lid!), but since it's barely half full I'd say a smaller one would do just as well.

I put some of the mix back into the oxiclean tub, and have been using the scoop that came with it to put the detergent in our washer. I fill the scoop to the first or second line and dump it in. So far, I can tell zero difference in what I used before (ALL, in case you were wondering) and the stuff that I made. If anything, I feel like our clothes smell better than before, and they're just as clean. My bestie said that she had found pieces of soap that didn't dissolve in her washer and/or clothes when she made this. That hasn't been the case for me yet, and I've been using it for a few weeks now. [Side note: This soap doesn't foam, so if you make it, don't freak out. It's working!]

Basically? I'm loving this stuff. It's cheap, easy to make, easy to use, and will last forever. If those aren't good enough reasons to make your own....I don't know what is!