homemade laundry detergent because i'm granola like that

hi y'all! 

hope you had a great weekend. 

i sure the heck did. :)

okay, so i promised you deets on my homemade laundry detergent. 

here's the story morning glory....

i have been wanting to make my own laundry soap for like, ever.

i kept procrastinating because i am such a researcher and wanted to sit down and research all the different options and pick the best/right one. 

welp. i got waylayed by the end cap display at walmart.

it was a big tower o' borax calling my name. 

i'm such a sucker for marketing. 

anywho, i just decided to look up a recipe right there in the walmart aisle and buy whatever it said.

i'm so spontaneous. 

i knew i wanted powder so i just clicked on the first pretty picture of powder detergent i saw and went with that. :)

the stuff sat on the counter for a few days until i could get to it. 

in the meantime, i did sit down and research several recipes online.

i chose powder b/c it seems like less mess and less storage and i like the way it looks in a jar. :)

the recipe i landed on uses all of the ingredients in the pic above.

i did see many recipes that just used borax, bar soap, &; washing soda.

i may try that next time....we'll see how this works out. 

i also saw several recipes with different soaps like zote, ivory, etc.

so you can play around with that part. 

i will probably try zote out next time....which is hopefully a long time from now. :)

there are a bazillion tutuorials for homemade laundry detergent out there but if you want to try what i did, i used: 

76 oz. box borax

55 oz. box washing soda

4 lb. box baking soda {on the laundry aisle}

3 bars fels naptha

1.5 {ish} pounds oxi clean (i used about 1/2 of that 3 lb. tub)

i grated the bars of soap on the finest part of my cheese grater.
this was totally mindless and easy.
i did it while watching dumb television. ;)
maybe not the best use of my brain cells, but oh well.
i wanted it super fine so i put the shreds through my mini chopper.
{this is what i use to chop all onions with and it saves my sanity}.
you don't have to do this step, but i am particular like that. :)
i found that some people just did the grating and some people just put it through their food processor.
whatever you have will be fine, i'm sure....i just wanted it to be nice and fine.

also, every time i put some of the shredded bar soap into my chopper i added a spoon or two of baking soda to keep it from clumping up in there. this worked like a charm.

so this is how it looks all shredded and processed.
i poured the rest of the big box of baking soda into this bowl and mixed that all up.

to mix the whole batch up, i poured this and everything else into a clean kitchen trash bag.
i actually double bagged it just to be safe.
i used a wooden spoon to stir it all up and then i pulled it out of the trash can and rolled it around and mushed it to get it all mixed up.

it honestly was super easy and you only use 1-2 Tbs. per load so it should last me for a while.
which i need since there are six of us crazies in this house. :)

let me know if you try it or if you already do this and have some tips for the rest of us! :)


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