Adventures in Homemade: Laundry Detergent

Back in June I planned to put together a series called Adventures in Homemade, coinciding with my plans to try to make as many cleaning products as possible in the comfort of my own kitchen.

Well, little did I know that making your own products takes more trial & error learning than I originally bargained for! Because I never quite found the right laundry detergent recipe for me, I needed to make and tweak my own until it was just right for our own needs.

So without further adieu, I bring you... my homemade laundry detergent recipe, adapted from The Family Homestead (I'm sorry but the fact that this website is stuck in 1997 is actually encouraging to me - if she's oldschool, her detergent can't be bad.. right?)

Step 1: Clean Out Old Laundry Soap Containers - 3 3-4L containers is suitable for this double batch

Step 2:  Grate your soap

1/2 a bar of soap is a good amount, grated.

Step 3: Melt Soap in Water, Add Borax & Amaze

In 12 cups of water, melt grated soap. When the soap is melted, add 1 cup of borax and 1 cup of Sunlight Amaze.

Let the mixture cool.

Add 2 cups of just-boiled water to the bottom of each container. Divide soap mixture evenly between containers and add 16 cups of warm water to each container. Shake shake shake shake shake each container!

Let sit overnight / up to 24 hours. The original recipe calls for 1/2 a cup of detergent for 1 load of laundry, but I use about 2 tablespoons per front load of laundry.

Note: Don't use this detergent on cloth diapers - the use of Borax might void your warranty!