Like cooking your own food, making your own household products is the best way to ensure that all ingredients are as eco-friendly as possible. There are a lot of household products that we can make ourselves, saving trees and money in the process. Today, I want to share a recipe for laundry detergent that I found on The Simple Dollar. It takes just four ingredients, and four tools that you likely have already check it out
Ingredients
- 1 cup washing soda
- 1 cup borax* (optional – 20 Mule Team is one brand)
- 1 bar soap (whatever eco-friendly soap you choose is fine!)
- 3 gallons water
- A container to store it in (a five-gallon bucket with a lid will do – try to find one that’s not made of plastic though!)
- A large wooden spoon for stiiring
- Put to boil soapy water
- Grater or other tool to cut up the soap
Steps
- Pour four cups of water into the pot and bring it to a boil.
- While it’s heating up, cut or shave the soap into pieces with your grater
- When the water is boiling, throw in the soap a bit at a time, stirring until dissolved
- Lower heat until water is simmering
- Stir the soapy water with a spoon until all of the soap is dissolved
- Eventually the water will take on the color of the soap you added, but a little bit paler.
- You should end up with some very warm, soapy water
- Next, get out your large bucket and add three gallons of warm tap water to it.
- To this bucket, add a cup of the washing soda
- Add the soap solution you made, and stir.
- Stir in half a cup of borax if you’ve chosen to use it
- Put a lid on the bucket and let the mixture sit for 24 hours.
When you take off the lid, you’ll find a number of things depending on the type of soap and water you used. It could be firm or watery just stir it up a bit and it’s ready to be used. Use one cup of detergent per load of laundry. This DIY laundry detergent has no expiration date and lasts for 52 loads. I haven’t tried this yet but I need to!
That’s it- all for around $10! What other household product recipes would you like to see?
*borax tends to get clothes feeling extra clean and fresh smelling you can experiment and see which recipe you like better, borax or no borax.
Have you tried to make any other household cleaners? Tell me how in the comments!
