Laundry Detergent: An Experiment

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I have never made my own laundry detergent before. I always just get the big bottle, you know, the one with the dispenser, of Sun Free and Clear at Big Lots for $6. Lasts quite a long time.

But I already had all the ingredients I needed to make my own minus the Fels Neptha soap. Since that was only 97 cents, I decided to give it a try.

Today will be my first day trying this. I used this recipe.

I used the fine side of my grater so it looked like this.

Yes, it does look like cheese but it smells like soap. 🙂

I was hoping to avoid having to put it in the food processor. But the washing soda and Borax were all clumpy from being in their original boxes and living under the sink so I had to anyway. I wanted to make sure everything was mixed well and not have to worry about clumps.

I found an old jar that I had sitting downstairs, waiting for the lid to be cleaned up and painted. I used silver Rustoleum spray paint so I didn’t have to try to clean the rust off. I like how wide open the mouth of the jar is so it is easy to get the soap out. I had some other big jars but they were tall and narrow.

I put a tablespoon right in the jar so I have it. You are suppose to use 2 tablespoons in a load.

I just did a load of whites with it and they seem clean. I have Matt’s really dirty laundry in right now. I use 2.5 tablespoons and presoaking. We’ll see how well it does cleaning his stuff.

I’ll give you an update once I have used it for awhile to see how I like it. I don’t usually like powdered detergent but making my own liquid soap seems like a lot more work. 🙂

(UPDATE: Not as great as I hoped. Need to try with a different type of soap.)