How to Make Your Own Eco-Friendly Laundry Detergent

This article will teach you how to make your own environmentally friendly laundry detergent. It is a fun process for the whole family and helps cut down on packaging and chemicals.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• 5 ounces of pure soap (can be deodorant soap)- preferably cruelty-free soap. I use pure glycerin soap. If you can find Zote Soap, that's great.
• Water (faucet is fine)
• grater
• large pot (3-4 quart size)
• Soda Ash (Sodium Carbonate) - a.k.a Washing Soda - can be found at grocery, photography, and pool supply stores.

1. The size of pot you can use. Grate the 5 ounces of soap into the pot and just cover with water.
2. Heat until soap is dissolved. Heat on low to medium heat, stirring continually.
3. Soda Ash/Washing Soda = Sodium Carbonate After heating and dissolving, fill pot the rest of the way with more water. Stir in ONE cup full of soda ash/washing soda.
4. Stir mixture until soda ash is dissolved. I usually heat mine on low and stir to dissolve the soda ash completely. Let mixture cool.
5. Use recycled containers, if possible. Funnel into a large recycled container, such as a recycled juice bottle, a cola bottle, or anything else you can find. Use 1/4 cup per full load of laundry.

Tips & Warnings

• I made a nifty funnel just for this project by cutting the top of a cola bottle, about a 1/3 of the way down, and removing the top. Just turn upside down, et voila, a funnel.
• You can use liquid castile soap, if you so please. It creates a different consistency, though.
• Different types of soap are going to create different consistencies of detergent. I have used liquid castile soap before. It turned out watery with white cloudy chunks. It still cleaned great, though.
• Glycerin soap creates a gloopy mixture, which is what I personally prefer.