Monday, July 16, 2012

You Can Manage- Homemade Laundry Detergent!

I am not a fan of most store-bought laundry detergents. They are full of all kinds of garbage chemicals and fillers that you waste your money on! This is the recipe and process for the laundry detergent we use. You may need to adjust the ingredients, as everyone has different types of water- hard, soft, kinda hard, kind of soft, you know! This is what you need-

1 helper child approximately the age of four years
1 canine supervisor to critique and offer encouragement
Fels-Naptha laundry soap bars
20-Mule Team Borax
Washing Soda--not to be confused with baking soda!

There are recipes that use entire boxes, or you can try just a couple cups at a time. 
The basic formula is- 2 cups Fels-Naptha, 1 cup Borax and 1 cup washing soda.



Have helper begin grating.


Keep watching them grate, offer help when little hands get tired!


Provide shade to canine supervisor. It is a tough job, after all.


Now, you have options. You can grate into this cheddar cheese like consistency and then powder it in the food processor. You can cube it and put it in the food processor. OR, which we have done before, you can just grate it on the tiniest hole side on your grater.


Process!


Should look like couscous now! 


Mix together ingredients in a large mixing bowl.


Pour into cute jar. Or empty leftover 32 oz yogurt container! 

Use 1 Tablespoon per load (yes, even a big one!) for everyday use. If you have been mucking in your yard, and your jeans are waist to toes in mud--use two!


Here is a picture of the Fels-Naptha so you can find it! All three ingredients in this recipe can be found at most grocery stores, large drug stores, or super stores. It can also be found on Amazon. It is .97/bar at Walmart. You can also use Zote-which is pink and has a slight citronella smell due to the citronella oil in it. Another note- opening the bar and leaving it to sit out overnight will let it dry out slightly, to aide in the powdering process. 

2 comments:

  1. Well...there are no dust or cats used in the making of this. Other than that, I don't know what to tell you. We don't have any indoor allergies here!

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  2. Borax is pretty gentle though. Super washing soda is basically like a healthier OxyClean. So it would just be the Fels-Naptha. Which I have heard some people can react to.

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