Laundry Detergent
Hello Friends! I hope you are all well.
Recently I ran out of my homemade laundry soap. Since I needed to make a new batch, I thought I'd bring you along and show you my recipe. It's super simple. I got the recipe from Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World by Kelly Coyne & Erik Knutzen.
Recently I ran out of my homemade laundry soap. Since I needed to make a new batch, I thought I'd bring you along and show you my recipe. It's super simple. I got the recipe from Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World by Kelly Coyne & Erik Knutzen.
Homemade Laundry Detergent
1 part grated soap bar
2 parts borax
2 parts baking soda/washing soda
Mix together in a bowl, then pour into an air-tight container for storage. Use about 2 Tbsp of powder for each load of laundry, or what suits your needs.
How simple can you get? And all of those ingredients can be found without plastic packaging--at least here in the US. I've been using this recipe for over 2 years. It works just as well as the liquid soap you can buy in plastic jugs. I use a castile soap so it should dissolve in cold water, however the authors of Making It suggest starting off your load with warm or hot water to help the soap dissolve. If you soap doesn't fully dissolve you can get residue on your clothes. I scatter about 2-4 Tbsp of soap into an empty washer barrel & start the water on warm/hot. After about 1-2 inches of water enters the barrel I swish it around feeling for soap grains. If there are none then I change my water to cold (my preference, but follow your own) and add my laundry. There, done! I haven't had any residue on my clothes since I've followed that method.
To make the detergent, I start by grating my soap. I find it easiest to do this while sitting with a bowl held between my legs. I use the ultra fine grating level because I want my soap to dissolve quickly, but this can produce a fine dust that gets in my nose & mouth, so I wear a bandanna around my face to help me breath easily.
Once I have the bar grated, I measure how much soap I have. I find one full bar of the brand I typically use equals about 1.5 cups grated. Since the recipe is based on ratios, I then add double that amount of each borax and baking soda.
I like to run my baking soda through a sieve to get all the clumps out. This makes the whole mixture more homogeneous.
Once the ingredients are mixed thoroughly together, I use a canning funnel to help me put it in a jar. When using a whole soap bar, I find this recipe typically makes me about 7.5 cups of detergent, which fits nicely into a half-gallon jar.
Have any of you ever made your own detergent? I have an uncle who makes a liquid version, but that sounds like more work than necessary to me. What other recipes have you tried? Please share in the comments below. Thanks so much! Until next time, take care.
I make a similar detergent, but use washing soda instead of baking soda. I previously used soap nuts, and sometimes made soap out of them too (it's a berry from a tree that has natural saponification properties). Where do you get your castle soap? I currently use fels naptha, but it only dissolves well in hot water.
ReplyDeleteI currently can get the brand I've typically used both at my local small chain grocery store and at my local co-op. However I'm thinking of trying a different soap next time as the bar I've been getting is wrapped in what I now understand to be a plastic-lined paper. I can get other bars in pure paper or even package free at the co-op and the large chain grocery store. I've never tried soap nuts, though. Would you recommend them?
DeleteI have used Kirk's castile (probably my favorite smell), felsnaptha, ivory, and Dr. Brommer's of various scents. They all work well as far as I have experienced. I'm currently washing most of my clothes in cold water with an Ivory based mix, and so far I have had no clothing stains.
DeleteKirk's castile soap I have to look around for. Sometimes it's at my regular grocery store (Hy-Vee), sometimes not.
-Sarah G.