Oh, well:)
In the past I had been buying laundry detergent at the warehouse stores because, well, with 4 sons, we go through a ton of it and I do a ton of laundry every week. Because I'm anal-retentive and can't stand to have laundry all piled up on the laundry room floor where you can't get to the vacuum cleaner or the under-the-stairs storage closet or whatever. That and we used to have a cat who liked to pee on the dirty clothes. Disgusting, I know, which is partly why we don't have said cat anymore! But anyway, it got me in the habit of doing laundry every day. I don't have room for tons of laundry baskets everywhere and when I had one of those three-partioned laundry sorter things, all it did was make a mess with too much laundry falling out... You know, one of these:
Anyway, I digress.
One day I came upon this website The Frugal Shopper and she had a recipe for homemade laundry detergent, several in fact. So I tried one, then I tried one of the liquid ones and really I liked the one that was just dry ingredients. So here it is, if you want to try it. That's my tip of the day. If you check her website you can find all kinds of tips on laundry softeners, etc., that save money.
Powdered Laundry Detergent
1 cup grated Fels-Naptha soap
1/2 Cup washing soda
1/2 Cup Borax
Mix well and store in a closed container. You should use approximately 1-2 tablespoons per load.
NOTES: 1 cup of grated soap is about one bar, I think.
Fels-Naptha soap is not really hard to find, but I don't like the smell much so I've used Dove,Ivory, Palmolive and Pure and Natural. You can use deodorant soaps too. I like the smell of Ivory.
Washing soda is not baking soda. It does come in a yellow box, and it's with the laundry detergents, and it's usually made by Arm & Hammer, but make sure you get washing soda. Borax is most commonly called 20 Mule Team Borax.
You can double, triple, whatever, this recipe and it works wonderfully!
Good luck! This saves me a ton of money every month, I think I estimated once I was spending about $30 a month on detergent only, and I think this costs about $10 for the 2 boxes of stuff and soap. Well worth it!
ANOTHER NOTE: This will not make suds. They are not necessary for good cleaning, so when you look in the washer and it isn't sudsy, don't worry.
2 comments:
I use the liquid detergent recipe. I've been thinking about making up some of the powdered version to try out too.
I can get Fels Naptha at Kroger, but I bought a giant bargain package of Ivory bar soap to use next time I make detergent.
Just a tip: I save all my bar soap slivers to grate for my liquid detergent, no matter what brand or type it is. I'm sure the soap slivers would work just as well for the powdered version.
xoxoxo
Diane
You know I really need to try and make my own powdered detergent, I bet it's so much cheaper than buying it.
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