I made my own laundry detergent!

I was at the end of my big pail of Kirkland laundry detergent and decided to use that pail to make some of the gel-style laundry detergent. It seems to be a pretty popular recipe:

• 1 bar soap (grated)
• 1 cup washing soda
• 1/2 cup borax (I used 1 cup because we have HARD water)
• hot water

Place grated soap in a pot with water to cover. Simmer on MED heat, stirring occasionally, till it’s all melted. Put melted soap in 5 gal bucket, add washing soda and borax. (I mixed at this point and added some boiling water to get everything dissolved better). Add enough hot water to fill bucket, and stir. Let sit overnight to gel. Use 1 cup per load.

Mine gelled fine. I’ve been using it on the odd heavily soiled load and it seems to work really good. I’m going to wait long-term though to make sure, since I liked Kirkland at first too, but after awhile all my lights got super dingy. We’ll see if things get dingy with this mix.

Oh, I also added a few ‘things’ to the mix when I added the borax and washing soda. I added a bit of orange EO, since I used a lemon-scented Sunlight laundry bar as the bar soap, and a squeeze of environmentally friendly mandarin dish soap liquid, so now it’s a gorgeous citrus scent. yum! It makes everything smell SO clean.

I did have a bit of a laundry bummer though, as I bought some environmentally friendly, petroleum product free, dryer sheets and they don’t work at ALL. They smell great, but the static with them is exactly the same as without them. What a disappointment! I think I’m going to pop into Home Hardware one of these days and get a couple of those reusable dryer ‘rags’. I’m already missing the nice smell of the regular commercial kind though. I’ve been looking up how to make my own though, and there seems to be all kinds of recipes that have nice smelling EO’s, so I’ll have to try that. Hopefully I have it all down to a science by the time next winter hits – super static season.