Homemade Laundry Detergent

 Yes it has come to that, I am making our laundry detergent. After mocking others, hippies mostly, I started making detergent myself. We spend a fair amount each year on detergent and we don't even use the pricier brands like Tide.

 Further down below is a recipe and a link to the site I got it from. This is a concentrated version; she also has a version that requires less of each ingredient. I used a 96 ounce jug to make this and each load of laundry uses 2 ounces of the liquid (HE machine, use more if you have a top-loader). So I am getting 48 loads per jug. Each jug costs me less than $2 to make. Around 5 cents per load. I haven’t bothered to figure out the exact amount. But it’s a lot cheaper than store-bought and only takes a few minutes to make. Oh and the stuff works. On the website is a non-concentrated version that is even cheaper to make.

How to make it:

Put the following into a jug, I used an old 96 ounce detergent jug. You could probably use up to a gallon jug.

1/2 cup of Borax
1/2 cup of Washing Soda
1/2 cup of Dawn Dishwashing Liquid - the blue grease fighting kind

Then add 4 cups of boiling water and shake the jug (behave people) to dissolve. Top off the jug with water. Shake the jug between uses to make sure it stays well mixed. That's it, simple.

Use ¼ cup for HE machine

Use ½ cup for top-loader

Stole this recipe from Here

You can get the Borax and Washing Soda at Amazon. I am told Wal-Mart has them for even less money, but I don’t do Wal-Mart. 

You might not think this saves a lot. But we do 30-35 loads of laundry per week. And even the cheapest detergent on sale ( ALL, Arm and Hammer etc...) costs 3 times as much as this home brew. 

Homemade detergent per year - $91

Cheap detergent (Cheer, All, Store brand) - $273

Tide and other high dollar stuff -  $310-$480

The non-concentrated version would be about $40 per year.

There are lots of detergent recipes out there, liquid and powder. If you've tried any that you like let me know about them.

For my very stinky running clothes, I still use regular store bought detergent. The homemade stuff doesn't get the Sardonic Stink out of them.

Not that I actually do the laundry myself, I mean I am married after all.