Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Tuesday's Tip

Today's tip: try something new with your laundry detergent.

While I was away. I made my first batch of homemade laundry detergent. I had been using a pretty expensive brand trying to cut down on the amount of chemicals that my family is exposed to. That was getting old. Fast. I combed the web looking for a simple recipe. I'm not nearly as ambitious as Lacy, at this point. Maybe someday. I really wanted powdered detergent.

I found a simple recipe and went to work.

First, you grate a bar of Fels-Naptha soap. Surprisingly, I found this sitting on the shelf in the laundry aisle of my local Kroger. I just grated it by hand using the small holes on my cheese grater. It yields about 2 cups of soap.

Then I took a cup of borax and a cup of washing soda and added it to the grated soap.


I mixed it all together and ended up with 4 cups of laundry detergent. While that doesn't seem like much, it only takes 2 tablespoons per large load of laundry. And it cost me less that $3.00 to make that batch.

Of course, the big question is, does it work? As far as I can tell, it works fine. While I'm not doing Pioneer Woman's manure soaked laundry every week, my crew can do OK. I have only been using it for a little more than a week and everything comes out clean and fresh and quite satisfactory. I'm pleased.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

32 large loads for $3? That's about equivalent to the super, probably chemical-laden laundry soap I use. Nice.

Anonymous said...

My recipe is exactly the same -- minus the water to make it a liquid soap. I wish I could use the powder!!! We have a septic tank and it has trouble processing the solid soaps. It is quite a deal, isn't it? And the Fels-Naptha is just super stuff, isn't it?

I love it for dishwashing, too!

Excellent post! Thank you for the linky love!!!

Blessings!
Lacy

Anonymous said...

I so want to try this! I'm going to have to see if my local stores carry the fels-naptha.

Unknown said...

Wouldn't it be less than $3.00 for 32 loads as you purchase the supplies in bulk? Around here the washing soda is about $3.59 for a box of a few pounds( I'm too lazy to look)and the borax is about the same. So , it's late, but I know $3.00 can't be right for 32 loads.