Saturday, February 9, 2013

A Little Something

For some time we have wanted to make our own laundry detergent. We have had the ingredients to make it for a while and now that we have almost used up this beautiful container of the name brand stuff.....


We finally got around to making our own.  We wanted to save money and use less chemicals in our house.  The homemade powder smells so good!  And, most importantly, works great.  But how attractive is that ugly plastic jug?  We were tired of having  to either haul out a big jug out of the cabinet or pay extra for one with a spout, such as this last one.

So we purchased a container from Hobby Lobby with a 40 percent-off coupon and also replaced the knob with a glass one from the 50 percent-off items. We love the way it turned out.  It even inspired us to clean up the laundry room and tweak it a bit.  Here is a shot of the laundry room and the container. The recipe we used for the detergent is below. If you try it let us know what you think.  It takes 2 tablespoons per load which averages about 18 cents a load.  Our first load was jeans and they came out very clean.






Take 3 Bars
 
Grate the soap finely.  We used our food processor. 
Then add 4 pounds of each of the following-

Arm & Hammer baking soda
Arm & Hammer washing soda
Borax.
It smells wonderful and only takes 2 Tablespoons for a large wash.
As Poppy says, "Try it you'll like it!"

11 comments:

  1. I think that I am definitely going to give this a try! I want to use something with less chemicals in it especially with Harrison's clothes.

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  2. So far so good; you don't smell much after the clothes come out of the dryer, which is fine with us. Everything has come out very clean. We are so used to strong smells with laundry and lots of suds that we think they are not clean if we don't get that. But I have not had any disappointment yet with this home brew...

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  3. I am planning on doing this one as soon as I use up my other home remedy (liquid soap). It works quite well and is on the same recipe as yours accept you have to cook it untill everything is liquid. The only thing I don't like is that it gets very thick after a while and is hard to scoop. I will try the dry stuff soon.
    HAPPY WASHING!

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  4. We just make sure we put the powder under the water as it fills the washer; even swishing it around if needed (using our wedding ring hand- it makes our rings so sparkly!).

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  5. THANK YOU for posting this! I will try this asap... awesome :D

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  6. Such a pretty laundry room! Your newest follower:)

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    1. Thanks for following- you have a lovely blog yourself! New to this so it is taking a bit to figure liks and such out. Appreciate the visit!

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  7. I've used this same recipe for 2 years now and it is the best!!! No suds, no perfumey smells, and cleans beautifully!! Your laundry room is so pretty too. My laundry is in the basement, not pretty but clean and workable.....I keep my mixture in a plastic tub with tight fitting lid and it has never clumped up. And I only use 1 box of the baking soda, you just need it as a water softener any way......

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  8. Isn't is wonderful? We still have not used all of the recipe I posted, and that is including having guests and washing extra linens and clothes! I have all the ingredients waiting for a refill. I need to get in there and clean that laundry room! Thank you for visiting, we hope you come back! :)

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  9. Do you know if this formula is ok to use in a high efficiency washing machine?

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    Replies
    1. Yes you can use it in a H. E. washer. This is because it produces a low amount of suds. You only need about a tablespoon for a normal load and 2 tablespoons for extra dirty clothes. Let us know if you try it. :)

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