Making Homemade Liquid Laundry Detergent

This is my first attempt, but I must say that it was quite easy and VERY economical. It only took about 1/2 hour to make the laundry detergent.

Each container holds approximately 2.5 gallons of detergent.

I wanted to share the recipe with you and the process of making it. The recipe makes 5 gallons (that's a lot of detergent!) The directions said after it's done you can add more water to it, so it might go even farther. I think I'll just stick to the 5 gallons.

Here are the steps and you will need the following:

Take 1 Bar of natural soap (such as Fels-Naptha, Ivory, Pure & natural)

Take a grater and grate the soap so it looks like this. You will need 2 1/2 Cups of water in a pan and pour the grated soap into the water. Melt the soap in the water on Medium heat.

You will melt the grated soap with the water until it is completely melted.
This will suds a little, but it's o.k. You will put in 1 C. Borax (found in the laundry detergent isle at the store)

You will also put in 1 C. Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (NOT baking soda) this is also found in the detergent isle.

You will stir both the Borax and the washing soda in the pan with the melted soap mixture.

The mixture will be gritty and thick (like pudding right before it gets super thick). Stir until the grittiness is gone.

Take your soap, Borax and washing soda melted mixture and pour into a 5 gallon pail that has been filled 1/2 way up with hot tap water.

Stir the mixture up then fill the bucket up to the top with hot tap water and give it a good stir. I added lavender essential oil to make mine smell heavenly (about 10-15 drops)

Cover the pail with a lid (leave it on loosely) and let it sit overnight to thicken. It will be gelled and thick (and looks like slime). I wisked mine to make it nice looking.

I think it turned out pretty good for my first try.

I think you should try it.

This is the finished product- 5 Gallons of homemade laundry detergent. The inital cost is about 9.00, but I only used a small amount of the supplies, so I have enough to make quite a bit in the future. That's not bad considering 1 bottle of regular detergent is about that cost.

You need anywhere between 1/2 - 3/4 C. for a top loading washing machines. High efficiency- use 1/8-1/4 C.

If you are wondering about the containers (beverage containers), I got them at Walmart for about 7.00 each.