Homemade

For my Pinterest challenge this week, I decided to give the homemade laundry detergent recipe a try.  There are several versions floating around the internet, some with or without varying amounts of water, but they all have the same basic ingredients: Borax, Washing Soda, and Fels Naptha Laundry Soap. I found all of these on the same shelf in the laundry section at Wal Mart.

Begin by grating 1/3 bar of Fels Naptha into a pot with 6 Cups water. Heat and stir until soap is melted.  Then add 1/2 Cup Borax and 1/2 cup washing soda and stir until dissolved. Some of the recipes call for up to 1 cup of each of these, according to whether or not you want a more heavy duty detergent. Use whatever you feel is best.  Pour 4 cups hot water into a large bucket. I used an old kitty litter container.

Then, stir in the melted soaps and stir.  Next add one gallon of water plus another 6 cups.  You now have 2 gallons of mixture.  Stir the mixture, replace the lid and let this sit for a few hours. Mine turned to a watery, stringy gel within a couple hours, just as it is supposed to be.  

 

I washed a load of Jeans and towels with this mixture and it cleaned very well.  I am happy with it. Now, when I crunch the numbers, I'm more pleased.  I'll detail my costs here. 

I should note that I used this website's weight/per cup of the dry ingredients. My numbers are assuming her weight of 4.2 oz for 1/2 cup of washing soda is correct. 

My cost for each item is as follows:

Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (55 oz box) $3.24 so .06 cents/oz and .25 cents/half cup

Mule Team Borax (76oz)  $5.95 or .08 cents/oz and .34 cents/half cup

Fels Naptha Soap (5.5oz Bar)  $1.99 divided into 3rds, .66 cents

I am not adding cost for water or the bucket.  Therefore the total cost of ingredients for one batch comes out to $1.25. Each batch makes 2 gallons.  16 cups to one gallon X 2 is 32 cups. Since each large load uses 1/2 cup of the mixture, that means each batch does 64 loads of laundry.  So now, if I divide $1.25 by 64 loads, that comes to .02 cents per load of laundry.  Pretty big savings, and I have enough ingredients to make 2 more batches before I have to buy more Fels Naptha. 

I have an empty liquid detergent bottle I plan to fill with my homemade gel to make dosing easier.