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For the past six months, I’ve been making homemade laundry detergent.  I found the original recipe here: Homemade Laundry Detergent – Simple, Easy, Fast, & Effective.

I started with this, forgot the exact ingredients, and went off on my own (but not too far) when creating this:

1 cup – 20 Mule Team Natural Laundry Booster
1 cup – Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
1 bar – Ivory Soap

Shred the Ivory Soap using a hand grater into a large bowl.  Combine the Borax and Super Washing Soda and mix until consistent throughout (approximately 5 minutes).

If you do not want to mix thoroughly by hand, you can also send it through a blender to turn it into a powder.  Just make sure everything is combined together in a large bowl and mixed a few times before passing it through.  I personally like using the blender method.

This makes about 16 dry ounces and lasts about 16 loads of laundry when one tablespoon is used.

Tip: I also mix in a little Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (approximately 1/2 cup) while the basin is filling up.  This helps to make the laundry smell fresh.

Cost Breakdown

The cost of making your own laundry detergent is a lot less than buying it.  Let’s do a quick breakdown:

Prices from Alice.com

$3.50 – 20 Mule Team Borax, 76 oz (makes approximately 10 batches; $0.46/batch)
$2.76 – Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda, 55 oz (makes approximately 7 batches; $0.39/batch)
$2.43 – Four Pack Ivory Soap (makes 4 batches; $0.60/batch)

Initial up-front cost: $8.69
Approximate cost per batch: $1.45
Approximate cost per load: $0.09

If you are interested in adding baking soda to your laundry:

$6.16 – Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, 13.5 lbs at Sam’s Club (approximately 54 loads; $0.11/load)

Approximate cost per load with Baking Soda: $0.20

The ultimate goal is to get the clothes clean; not to smell pretty.  This could be perfect for someone (like me) with sensitive skin.  A lot of other laundry detergents cause me to break out; this does not.

Give it a try and let me know your outcome and suggestions!

Tags: frugality, Homemade, laundry detergent

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 10:10 pm and is filed under Homemade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.