Homemade Cleaning Supplies

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I have been reading posts on Facebook recently about homemade laundry detergent.  We like the idea homemade so I thought, why not?  I made my first batch today.  I must say the process was very easy and I am excited to try it the next time we do laundry.   

 One of the major eye openers for us since moving to Louisiana has been how much less laundry we do now.  Christopher lives with my parents and Stephanie is away at school so we only have laundry for three now.  It is shocking.  We have five children and though we have never had all five of them at home at the same time, we have had our share of laundry to do.  I remember when we first became a family, laundry piles were large!  It would take all day to do all the laundry, and that didn't mean that it would all be complete at the end of the day.  Today, when we did the laundry we only had two large and one small load.  What a difference!  

 Most of the recipes I found were basically the same.  The one I used was from Living on a Dime's website.  I made four gallons of detergent at a cost of $.40 per gallon.  Not sure how well this stuff works, but that is much cheaper than any store bought brand.  There was also a recipe for making homemade dishwashing detergent too so I made that as well.  



Homemade Laundry Detergent

1/3 bar Fels Naptha Laundry Soap, grated
6 cups water
1/2 cup washing soda
1/2 cup borax
To make homemade laundry detergent, heat 6 cups water and soap in a large pan until dissolved. Stir in washing soda and Borax. Mix and heat until dissolved. Boil 15 minutes. Remove from heat. (It will have the consistency of honey.*) In a 3 or 5 gallon bucket, add 1 quart of hot water, then add the soap mixture. Mix. Add enough cold water to make a 2 gallon mixture. Mix until well blended. Let sit 24 hours. The soap will gel*. Use 1/2 cup for each load.
Makes 2 gallons. (Approximately $ .40 per gallon)
*If the homemade laundry detergent doesn’t gel or reach honey consistency it will still work.




Homemade Dishwasher Detergent
Ingredients
  • 1 cup baking soda or washing soda
  • 1 cup Borax
  • 1-2 drops of scented oil (optional)
Instructions
  1. Mix ingredients. Use the homemade dishwasher detergent like you would use regular detergent.

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