Homemade Laundry Detergent

I've had a few people ask me for my recipe for homemade laundry detergent. I've only recently started making my own laundry detergent in an effort to cut down on our grocery bill and also to limit the number of chemicals that come into contact with our skin.

I chose a recipe for a powder detergent, but there are many recipes (google!) for liquid detergents that work just as well and are just as inexpensive.

My recipe is as follows:

2 parts Borax
2 part Washing Soda
1 part shredded bar soap

You can make this recipe any way you like using those proportions. I store my detergent in a 1 gallon icecream bucket so I make it using:

2 cups Borax
2 cups Washing Soad
1 cup shredded soap

Really, any bar soap will work. A highly recommended one is Ivory because it is very pure. I wanted something with a light scent, so I bought a bar of lavendar soap from Whole Foods. I made sure it was scented with pure lavendar oil and not artifical perfumes.

First I take my cheese grater and grate the soap. Then I mix everything together and put it into a food processor to further chop the soap and make sure everything is completly mixed. Then just put it into whatever storage container you'd like.

Use 1 TBSP for a small load, 2 TBSP for a large load or extra dirty load. This is a non-sudsing formula, so don't be worried when you don't see a lot of bubbles. It's still in there doing it's job! Note: This detergent is not meant for us with cloth diapers.