how to make it yourself

If you’re interested in making your own laundry detergent from home – I have what I believe to be the best homemade laundry detergent recipe for you. I’ve tested out numerous ways of making laundry detergent from home – in both liquid form and powder form. The recipe for homemade laundry detergent here is all natural and my favorite recipe – it a powdered laundry detergent that will save you a lot of money each year.

Ingredient List:

• Borax (one 70 oz. box – only 55 oz. is used for this recipe) – Approx. Cost: $3.79
• Washing Soda (one 55 oz. box) – Approx. Cost: $2.50
• Zote (one 14 oz. bar) – Approx. Cost: $2.89
• Essential Oil Scent (*optional)

Total Cost: $9.18 for 124 ounces – a massive amount of laundry detergent (see below for breakdown of savings)

Where to Purchase the Ingredients:

Personally, I purchased all of these items in the laundry aisle at Woodman’s store in Wisconsin. I’ve also purchased Washing Soda and Borax at Walmart before – and most people live within a short distance from a Walmart. If you cannot find a bar of Zote soap, another recommended brand to use is: Fels Naptha – but I have not personally tried that kind yet. If you can, I highly recommend you use Zote, as it makes a major difference in the softness of your clothing. The first time I made laundry detergent, the recipe online that I found recommended any type of bar soap – so I used a cheap one that I had in the bathroom and the clothes felt dingy and stiff. The Zote majorly improves the texture of the clothes.

Step 1.

First, open up your bar of zote and if you do not have a blender, then you may need to use a cheese grater to grate it down into small pieces. The soap is rather soft, and if you have trouble grating it, then I recommend just chopping it up into small pieces – as small as you can make them. If you do have a blender, this step will be much easier for you. You will need to chop the bar of zote into uneven chunks or pieces. Then place them into the blender and grind them up as small as possible. Then pour into a bowl and set aside. You may notice it has a heavy scent and if you don’t like that, you can add some essential oil to the mix in the blender at this time. I thought the scent of the zote itself was overpowering, but once mixed in with the other ingredients it is subtle and very nice.

Step 2.

Pour the entire contents (55 ounces) of the washing soda into a bucket or large container. Then, pour most of the contents of the Borax into that bucket as well (I bought the borax in a 70 oz. box and estimated 55 oz. then poured it into the bucket, leaving behind some borax in the box to save for the next time I make laundry detergent). Mix the ingredients with a long wooden spoon or anything else you have handy.

Step 3.

Add the zote pieces (which should be about 3 1/2 cups of shredded pieces of zote) to the bucket with the washing soda and borax. You may need to really dig deep to mix it all up well. It is very powdery and if you like, you can wear a little mask. My 5-year old son pretty much made the entire batch last time – and he went into our first aid kit, grabbed a mask and mixed away. Once mixed fully, you can either leave it in the bucket or transfer to a plastic container of some sort. Personally, over winter I bought a plastic container with salt in it and with slots on the top for de-icing my driveway – I used the salt and washed out the container and the laundry detergent fits perfectly in it. You can see it in the photo below, although the top for the container is not showing, you can see how well the all of it fits.

Recommended Useage

I recommend you use about two tablespoons of laundry detergent for one average-sized load. For larger loads, you may want to use more. But the stuff is concentrated and very effective with two tablespoons.

Saving Money By Making Laundry Detergent at Home

If you want to know the approximate cost-per-load from your homemade laundry detergent – it is about $.07 cents per load. There are about 276 tablespoons in this batch of laundry detergent. If you divide it by two – you will have 138 loads of laundry with using two tablespoons of detergent at each load. The cost-per-load for All Fresh Rain – a normal or average product purchased from the store is about $.17 cents per load with a box that costs about $29.88.

Personally, I have two people in my household and I do about four loads of laundry per-week – that’s 16 loads per month. With my homemade laundry detergent, I should be able to do laundry for: 8 1/2 months!!! That is awesome! Just be sure to not over-use the stuff, as it is concentrated and some people have a tendency to pour a full cup or two in when it is not needed at all.