Homemade Laundry Detergent

A few weeks ago, I made my own laundry detergent. I got the recipe off the Duggar's website. I think a lot of what they do is totally crazy, however, I think the cost of laundry detergent is also ridiculous. Moreover, I like a project. It was pretty easy to do. First you grate a whole Fels Naptha bar and mix it with 4c hot water. Cook it until it melts. It looks like this when you are cooking it:



It took a pretty long time. I thought the soap would melt easier and threw in a couple chunks instead of making sure every piece was finely grated. I will definitely be more careful next time. Here's a picture of me cooking it.



Finally fill a 5 gallon bucket half full with hot water. Add 1 cup of arm & hammer washing soda (I found it at Winco) and 1/2 cup of borax and then the melted soap. Stir that all up. It blended together almost instantly. Here's how it looks:




Finally fill the bucket the rest of the way up. Let it sit overnight. Then mix 1 part detergent to 1 part hot water to use. I use 1/4 c per load in my front-loader. The negatives to this are that is a very odd consistency and it gels up while it sits around. However, its dirt cheap and it works really well. Clothes come out with not scent just clean.

If you are in the Salem area and would like to try it out just bring a bottle by and I'll pour you some. We have plenty!