Homemade Laundry Detergent

Laundry Detergent Recipie from the Duggars. http://www.duggarfamily.com/recipes.html

Ingredients:

1 bar of soap (Fels-Naptha is suggested but I've heard this contains a form of petroleum and you may want to find a more crunchy soap to substitute it with. If you decide to use this, it's $3.75 at this site for 2 bars' worth, already shredded)

1/2 cup Borax ($4.70 at this site - That comes to about $0.47 for each batch of detergent. There is 9.5 cups in each 76 ounce box...or so I read)

1 cup Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda ($2.00 at this site)

4 cups water (to start)

Instructions (Short version. See the Duggar's site for longer version):

Grate one bar of soap. Mix with 4 cups of water. Heat until all soap has melted and been mixed with the water. Pour into a large container. Add Super Washing Soda and Borax. Add 5 gallons of water. Mix well. Let sit overnight. Add 5 more gallons of water. Mix well. You now have 10 gallons of laundry detergent!


This will make 10 gallons of liquid laundry detergent. Your total cost to make this would be less than $4.50 (not including the 10 gallons of tap water to make it).


In regular machines, use about 1/2 - 5/8 cup (I use 1/2 cup but the Duggar site calls for 5/8 cup). In HE machines, use 1/4 cup.


This should last for about 320 loads in a regular machine, 640 loads in an HE machine.


The best I could find online just by doing a quick google search was about $3.50 for enough detergent to do 28 loads.


So.....


$3.50 for 28 loads or.....

$4.50 for 320 loads.


Hmmmmm.

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Conclusions:

So naturally, I put this recipe to the test. Results - it works! It actually got all the stink out of my hubby's socks! WHEW! I actually used a bar of dove soap and found that it did not thicken as much as I would have liked. Because of this, I ended up only making 5 gallons of detergent.

If your family is anything like my hubby though, they will still miss the fragrence of regular commercial laundry detergent. If this happens, try adding 1 - 2 drops of essential oils per gallon of laundry detergent liquid after it has cooled.