Homemade Laundry Detergent Without Borax

I can always tell when my kids clean their room, my laundry room goes from reasonable to “how-on-earth-can-you-people-have-THIS-MANY-articles-of-clothing?!!”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about clean rooms…*sigh*

So anyhow! Hubby and I have been using soap nuts for a while and we love them (look for a future post!), however sometimes you just need a little more “oomph” in your detergent, especially when it comes to the clothing of a teenager who played basketball in 95 degree weather and left the gross clothing in her closet for a week.

I was browsing the net for a no borax and no washing soda laundry detergent recipe. I have nothing against borax and washing soda, I just don’t have any in the house and running to the store to get them just isn’t an option at the moment.

I came across this recipe and was able to tweak it to meet our needs. This makes a very small but very concentrated batch, which was ok with me as I wanted to start with a small batch. Small batches are perfect for those who have never made laundry detergent before, people who are limited by the amount of ingredients they have and those without the means to store a large batch. It’s also good for those of us who are intimidated by the ingredients, cooking and the fact that so many people say it takes a long time to make…and right now I’m all of those people :)

I am not saying this is the best version out there, it was just the one I started with.

My customized version:

Homemade Laundry Detergent Without Borax

1 bar castile soap (Every resource I’ve read says you can also use Ivory or Fels Naptha…to be honest I used this no-name stuff made from coconut and oatmeal)
1 cup baking soda
1/3 cup salt
2 cups water

Grate the bar of soap, I totally used my food processor.

Mix soap, baking soda and salt. I switched the blade and used my food processor again.

Add the water and mix. Initially I poured everything into a plastic bag with the idea that I could seal and shake, in the end I mixed it in my blender. Incidentally I now have some majorly clean small appliances. In hindsight I’d do it all in my food processor or in a large bucket.

*********************** RESULTS & PHOTOS *******************

It took me about 6 minutes to make this batch, 10 if you count looking for the plunger thingy for the food processor.

You can mess around with the amount added to your laundry, I decided to use roughly 1/8 cup for a full load because it seemed reasonable, arbitrary but reasonable. I’m considering adding just a drop or two of tea tree oil in the future for it’s anti-stinkyteenager properties.

To gauge the results in a very non-scientific manner I picked out one of my 5 year old’s shirts. Here’s a close-up of the smudge he made during dinner last night:

The shirt AFTER being washed in a full load with other similar-colored clothing (Yeah, right..I just threw in whatever would fit after I picked it up off the floor!):

OK, so the stain faded considerably but didn’t come out. I blame myself, I wouldn’t expect conventional detergent to get sloppy joe sauce out of a white shirt without pre-treating.

On the bright side, the laundry turned out *much* whiter than I expected, especially since I did a mixed load of lights/darks. It smelled great, like…get this…clean clothing! There was no perfume smell, just a very slight soapy smell.

I haven’t worn anything from this batch of laundry yet but I did wrap up in a towel from the load. It was nice and soft, not scratchy at all, color me surprised! For some reason I really expected the clothes to be scratchy, but they’re so soft.

I’m most impressed that there isn’t a soapy residue left behind. No residue is very important to me, I’m the person who refuses to use bar soap because of the plastic-y feeling it leaves behind.

I estimate this recipe equals about $.08-$.10 per load, though honestly it’s less for me right now because the soap was given to us. I pay about $.20 per load for the cheapest store brand unscented detergent and around $.13 per load when I use soap nuts.

Major savings? Not really, but if you’re out of laundry detergent it’s cheaper to make your own than get in the car and drive to the store. Plus, isn’t the fact that you know how to make it comforting in a way? Knowledge is priceless :D

Easy? Certainly.

Better for our skin? Debatable, though the less chemicals the better, right??

Better for our clothing? I’m still not convinced it’s not leaving residue even if I can’t feel it BUT so could regular detergent.

Will I make this to use up the gazillion bars of soap we somehow accumulated from a moving relative (3 YEARS ago!)? Oh yeah.

Will I keep experimenting to get the cost down even further? Yup!

Bar soap after grating:

Everything but the water: