Quick and Easy Homemade Laundry Detergent

After much procrastination and puttering around, I have finally gotten around to making my own homemade laundry detergent.  This project meets The Frugal Writer's stringent criteria:

• It has to be easy to do
• It must save money or time (or both!)
• It should be environmentally friendly, or at least improves conservation
• It must require less than 5 steps and/or 5 ingredients or less
• It must be a project that can be broken down and completed in 15 minute increments

While I can't take credit for concocting the recipe, once I reviewed three different sources saying the same thing, it was time to take action.

My favorite supersized family, The Duggars, make their own laundry detergent, but they devote a day to it and end up with a gooey liquid.  That was out of the question for me because it only met two of the five criteria.  I needed something fast and I wanted something dry, lest I have a castastrophe in my house of whirling dervishes.

Powder was the recipe of choice and I ended up going with Jabs Homemade Laundry Detergent.  The recipe fit all my criteria and I already had a bar of Fels Naptha soap on hand, along with the borax and the washing soda.  When Jabs mentioned the cost savings and the fact that the powder fits well in a 32oz yogurt container, I knew this was a post after my own heart.

Does it work?

I give it a resounding yes!!!!  I have a high energy front loader and I just make sure to put the 1Tbsp of powder in with the clothes so I don't have to worry about clogging.  The detergent is low sudsing and leaves the clothes with a basic, clean scent.  I also wash cloth diapers and the soap is gentle enough for baby's skin but gets the grime out.  The first time I used the homemade detergent with diapers, I forgot to add my vinegar rinse and the diapers still smelled great. 

So there you have it.  I would have done this much sooner if I would have known how easy it is.

A SIMPLE RECIPE
(From Matt Jab's http://diynatural.com/simple-easy-fast-effective-jabs-homemade-laundry-detergent/ blog post)

Each batch yields approximately 32 ounces (between 32-64 loads based on how many Tbsp used per load).

■1 bar of shaved bar soap (Ivory, ZOTE, Fels-Naptha)
■1 cup of borax
■1 cup of washing soda

1. Grate the bar soap.
2. Add the other two ingredients.
3. Stir well (or shake it in your yogurt container....)

That's it!

Believe it or not, Fels Naptha soap is locally available at the HARDWARE store!!!!  I hate to admit that I stumbled across the Fels Naptha last year, while getting babyproofing stuff and left the bar of soap to languish in the laundry room until I stumbled across http://www.diynatural.com/

I just bought more Fels Naptha to make my second batch of detergent.  If I can do it, anybody with a pulse can do it.