Homemade Laundry Detergent

Thanks to The Simple Dollar (one of the Bowmans favorite blogs) we were enticed into making our very own homemade laundry detergent. Okay…well…we used stuff that WASN’T homemade to make it, but it’s still considered homemade, right?

Anyway, according to Trent on The Simple Dollar, “nine loads using my homemade detergent has the same detergent cost as one load of Tide with Bleach Alternative.” The savings for him? At least $70 per year. He probably does a lot of laundry

Our Cost and Savings
In our 2-person home we do about 2 loads of laundry a week, 108 per year.

We use Seventh Generation laundry detergent. The cost is $16.99 for 100 ounces which cleans 66 loads. That’s 25 cents per load.

The homemade laundry detergent cost us roughly $7 (with extra soap, borax, washing soda and a bucket to use later) and provides roughly 52 loads. We have the ingredients to make this stuff 4 more times. So really, that $7 paid for 260 loads. That’s 2 cents a load.

Using Seventh Generation laundry detergent, it would theoretically cost us $26.00 a year to wash clothes. With the homemade stuff, it would theoretically cost us $2.08 a year. Wait, what?! That’s pretty much free. We are saving about $24/year.

Here is Trent’s post on laundry detergent.

The “Recipe”

Here is what you will need:

• 1 cup washing soda
• 1/2 cup borax
• 1 bar soap
• Approximately 3 gallons water
• a cheese grater (or knife, or peeler, or just something sharp)
• a pot
• a bucket or other large container
• something to stir with

Step 1 – Shred, slice, or grate your bar of soap.

Step 2 – Boil about 4 cups of water in a pot and as it is heating, slowly add in soap pieces.

Step 3 – Let it simmer until the soap is dissolved into the water.

Step 4 – Pour about 3 gallons of warm tap water into your bucket

Step 5 -Add Borax, Washing Soda and soap solution and stir.

Step 6 – Let sit for 24 hours

Step 7 – Do some laundry!

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