Laundry Powder — Housewife's Whimsy

Several years ago after I had just graduated college I started making my own laundry detergent. I was sick and tired of purchasing expensive detergent and I wanted something less expensive since I had just begun working full time and money was tight. After looking through several detergent recipes I came up with one that I enjoyed.When I recently made this the total cost was about $25.00. The amount of detergent this makes will last Hubby and I about two years. We do about 8-10 loads of laundry every two weeks. This means that we will get approximately 400 loads of laundry out of this recipe making our final price per load around $0.06. I would say that’s not a bad price for a load of laundry! The detergent I was purchasing before tended to be between $0.11 and $0.22 per load. As you can see it is much more cost efficient for me to make my own.Now you may wonder how it does on extra grimy clothes. Hubby does a lot of work on the car and other household projects. We’ve always been happy with the way this detergent cleans and it always seems to get his extra greasy or dirty clothes back to squeaky clean. For extra bad stains you may want to pretreat. Since it does not suds at all it is ok to use in an HE washer.

Ingredients:1 (4lb 12oz) Box of Borax1 (3lb 7oz) Box of Super Washing Soda1 (3lb) Container of Oxy Clean2 (14.1oz) Bars Fels Naptha Soap (Zote Soap will also work)4 (1lb) Boxes Baking Soda1 (55oz) Bottle of Purex CrystalsDirections:Grate the Fels Naptha bars (I use my food processor to do this). Combine all of the ingredients well and store in an airtight container. I use the leftover Purex bottle to store the detergent for easy access and I refill it from the airtight container when it’s empty. I use about a half a Purex cap for a normal load, and a full cap for Hubby’s overly dirty work clothes.

I’ve used both the Oxy Clean brand and the Target brand Oxy Clean for this recipe and have not noticed a difference in the cleanliness of our clothes. I will probably use the Target brand again since it is considerably less expensive.The only downside to making your own detergent is that you don’t really get that overly fresh clean laundry scent. I have found our clothes to be pretty scentless when I’m done. However, that is something I am willing to give up for the savings when I make my own.