I've been reading about this online for sometime and already had a box of borax in the cupboard. Then we ran out of laundry detergent and there weren't any good sales.
So I decided to give making my own laundry detergent a try. It only takes 3 ingredients:
1 cup Washing Soda
1 cup bar soap, grated (I used a bar of Fels-Naptha, a stain-treating soap.)
1 cup Borax
I found all of them at the Walmart.
First step, grate the soap. I used my cheese grater.
I contemplated using this dirt scented soap I received for my 30th birthday from Uncle Kevin and Aunt Elizabeth, but decided against it when I realized a bite had been taken out of it. (Oliver....)
Here's the grated soap, not only is it beautiful, but it smells like a strong detergent and my be my most favorite smell in the world, next to Murphy's Oil Soap. I could just leave it in bowls around the house- like potpourri.
Boil a quart of water and add the grated Fels-Naptha. Stir until dissolved.
While you wait, make faces at a cute baby until she dissolves in giggles and pulls the top tray off of her high chair.
Fill a bucket halfway with hot water, then add the borax and washing soda and stir well. (My biggest expense was dropping $4 on this 5-gallon bucket and a lid.) Stir in the dissolved Fels-Naptha and you're done!
Let the bucket sit overnight and the mixture essentially congeals. I had a great picture of me stirring my detergent, but just realized I inadvertently did not transfer 100 pictures from my memory card before deleting them. (Also in those 100 pictures- a picture of my rock hard abs, Brandon's rippling biceps and the Loch Ness Monster.)
Almost three months later, this is what it looks like. I still mix it up occasionally, but mostly I just use a cup to scoop 1/2 cup out at throw it in the washer. I should find an empty detergent container and funnel some in, so I can shake it up every time.
Another alternative is to finely grind the Fels-Naptha up (I used my Magic Bullet) and add a cup each of washing soda and borax. Since you're not adding 5 gallons of water, you only need to use a teaspoon or two at a time. I made up a batch of dry powder to take with us on our beach vacations this summer.
How does it work?
Great! I still pretreat stains as soon as possible (if I remember at all), so I hadn't noticed any difference in our laundry. But we had a great learning opportunity when June had her "finger in the door incident." The next day I realized her entire shirt was covered in blood. Figuring it to be a total loss, I tossed it in the wash and it came out completely clean! Not bad.
End result: I love this stuff! It's been 3 months at about 5-7 loads of laundry a week and we're only half way through the bucket. And the best part is that the total cost for all of the ingredients was under $2.
(Sidebar: If you decide to give this a try and buy two big boxes of washing soda and borax, get ready to enter a world of made-at-home cleaning solutions. I scrub my whites with a paste of washing soda to get rid of sweat stains, clean the house with borax, and most recently started making dishwasher detergent. It's equal parts borax and the soda. Check the ingredients on your detergent- it's really that simple.)
