How to Make Liquid Homemade Laundry Detergent

While there are many different recipes for homemade laundry detergent, this particular recipe works amazingly well. It is simple to make and very cheap compared to the store bought brands (about 1/2 the price!). It is safe for septic systems and best of all it's great for people with sensitive skin. Those who are susceptible to reactions from heavy or perfumed detergents will love this homemade recipe!

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 1 Cup Borax
• 1 Cup Washing Soda
• 1 Bar Soap (Fels-Naptha or Ivory work great)
• 1 Gallon of Water
• Large pot to "cook" it

1. Start with your Bar of Soap. It needs to be chopped up. Some great suggestions (in order of difficulty and time). Put it in a food processor. Use a cheese grater. Or cut it up with a knife. The point is get it pretty finely ground. You'll be dissolving it into the water next.

2. Take your gallon of water and bring it to a light boil. Slowly mixing in the ground up/grated soap. Keep stirring until the soap has dissolved.

3. Turn the heat down to low and slowly mix in the washing soda and Borax. Again, keep stirring till both are dissolved. Then remove from heat.

4. Carefully pour your mixture into a storage container. The last store bought laundry container (you'll ever buy again) works great. But just about any container or jug that you can pour from will work. Letting your detergent sit for 24 hours before first use will allow it to gel up a bit.

Tips & Warnings

• People with well water or extremely hard water may have to adjust the water content to provide more (or less) cleaning action. Feel free to experiment with quantities to find what works best for you.
• If you'd like a little fragrence a few drops of your favorite essential oil mixed in will do wonders.
• Detergent may need to be stirred (or shaken) as the ingredients sometimes settle out a bit.

[1worldstudios]

on 11/14/2009 Let me know how it works for you!

[conkerer]

on 11/14/2009 Thanks! Laundry detergent is quite expensive and this sounds like such a great idea. I really enjoy making things like this myself.

[justabeginner]

on 11/6/2009 Thank you very much !

[1worldstudios]

on 11/6/2009 It's absolutely safe for High Efficiency washers. You may have to adjust the ingredient amounts to account for less water, but I've this recipe myself in a high efficiency top loading as well as front loading washers. Best of luck!

[justabeginner]

on 11/6/2009 Just wonder if you can use it on High Efficiency washers...