Heeeey yall. It has been a minute since my last post, but with the work keeping me busier than normal, plus the holidays, I feel like I haven’t had time to do anything. However, just over three weeks ago, we started running out of laundry detergent. Well, since we had been talking about making our own laundry detergent for a while, I took the opportunity to give it a whirl. In addition, I wanted to give us an opportunity to use it a little bit before I shared it with you.
I had been looking around at different recipes for making laundry detergent for a minute now. I would see where some people were making dry (or powder form) laundry detergent and I saw were some would make liquid detergent. Our family’s preference has been to use liquid detergent so, my research took me that route. I am a part of a homesteading group and earlier this year they were talking about making their own laundry soap (both dry & liquid) which gave me some good information as well. Between the group and Pinterest, I found that most recipes are basically the same so, I settled on one with my own tweaks. (The laundry recipe from “Mrs. Happy Homemaker” blog is what I used as a guide to make my own and you can find her recipe for laundry detergent at “Homemade Laundry Detergent, Less Than $2 for 5 Gallons”).
What You’ll Need
I have found that the ingredients are pretty much the same for most basic laundry detergents, but these are the things that you’ll need:
- 4 cups of water
- 5.5-6 oz – Zote Laundry Soap 14.1 oz (white or pink)
- 1 cup – 20 Mule Team Borax
- 3/4 cup – Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
- 4-6 drops – Tea Tree Oil (or other essential oils are optional)
- Cheese Shredder
- 5 gallon bucket with lid
- Paint mixer, Allway Helix 5 Gallon Paint Mixer (optional)
- Power drill (optional)
- Scale (optional)
We actually ended up going to Wally’s World (Walmart) and the local hardware store for all of our ingredients and other items, but I have placed links to Amazon, in the event you want to go that route. Also, it seems Amazon has found enough people buying similar ingredients that it has put together a “Laundry Soap Kit“ where you can purchase the Borax, Washing Soda, & Fels Naptha (similar to the Zote we used) all together.
How Much Can I Save?
Before we go any further, I want to quickly talk about the potential savings from making 5 gallons of laundry detergent. Depending on where you are buying your materials, your mileage may vary, but you should be in the general ball park. I will be excluding the optional and tool-like items since you may already have them because they would be a one time purchase. I will only focus on what goes into making the basic detergent itself. The cost of water will be pretty much negligible since you probably use more than 5 gallons for a shower. Also, since the Zote laundry bar soap can be hit or miss in Wally’s World, I will use the Amazon prices for its calculations.
| Quantity | Ingredient | Cost (USD) | Cost Per Ounce (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 bars, 14.1 oz | Zote Laundry Soap | $13.99 | $0.29/oz |
| 1 box, 65 oz | 20 Mule Team Borax | $4.47 | $0.07/oz |
| 1 box, 55 oz | Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda Detergent Booster | $3.97 | $0.08/oz |
Given, what we need from our ingredients list, here’s the cost of the ingredients that we will use.
| Ingredient | Recipe Amount | Recipe Amount (Oz) | Cost of Recipe Amount (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zote Laundry Soap | 5.5 oz | 5.5 oz | $1.60 |
| 20 Mule Team Borax | 1 cup | 8 oz | $0.56 |
| Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda Detergent Booster | 3/4 cup | 6 oz | $0.48 |
| TOTAL | $2.64 |
Yes, you are seeing that correctly…$2.64 is about what you’ll spend to make 5 GALLONS worth of laundry detergent! We were using the Arm & Hammer liquid detergent which was costing us around $15 for a 1.67 gallon container. If I wanted 5 gallons of the store bought detergent, it would cost us $44.90 (or $15/1.67 gallon = $8.98/gallon, then $8.98 x 5 = $44.90)!!!! That is a huge savings of a little over $42 ( or $44.90 – $2.64 = $42.26)!!!! Keep in mind that you’ll have enough Zote to make one more 5 gallon batch and enough borax and washing soda to make several more batches!
So, enough of boring you with all these savings and let’s talk about how to make the stuff.
The Steps
- Clean/Sanitize your 5 gallon bucket &. You can do this with some warm water and peroxide. Set it aside.
- First things first, you’ll want to cut a little less than half of the Zote Laundry Soap. I wanted to measure mine using the scale to ensure I had about 5.5 to 6 oz of laundry soap.
A lot of people also use a laundry soap called Fels Naptha instead of the Zote Laundry bar, but I could not find it at Walmart. In my research some people did not like the smell of the Fels Naptha. I don’t know how it smells, but I personally love the smell of Zote. - Take your handy dandy shredder and shred your cut piece of bar soap.
- Add the 4 cups of water to a pot and add the shredded soap. Heat the pot of water using low-medium heat, but do not bring it to a boil. Stir the soap pieces until it is completely melted.
- Once the shredded bar soap has melted fill your 5 gallon bucket half way with hot tap water. Now pour in the melted soap into the bucket with the warm water and mix it well. I used the paint mixer to do this. I didn’t mix it vigorously, but just enough for the water and soap solution to mix.
- Now we add in the cup of Borax and 3/4 cup of Washing Soda. Mix it well by hand until the Borax and Washing Soda is completely dissolved.
- Mix in the your essential oil at this point. (You may want to use more than 4-6 drops in what you are doing. We opted to use 4-6 drops of tea tree oil for a couple of reasons. After talking to a few people, folks have had experiences where their clothes start to smell after some time. I read about potential issues with the Washing Soda being the cause, but many people claim not to have any issues after using homemade laundry soap for years. This is why we cut back the amount of Washing soda to 3/4 cups. We chose to use tea tree oil because it is anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-___(fill in the blank). We only used a few drops as to not over power the smell of the Zote, but just enough to fight any potential issues.)
- Fill the bucket up the rest of the way with warm water. One thing I did was place the bucket in the kitchen sink to fill it. When I had the bucket on the floor and filling it using the sinks veggie sprayer, it started to create bubbles. So, moving it closer to the water, help to reduce the amount of bubbles.
- Now, cover the container with a lid, then set it and forget it (well at least for 24 hours). During this time all of the ingredients will gel up over night.
- After 24 hours, open your container and check it out. I found it really weird in that a thick gel had formed on top to the point where when I pushed on it, the whole thing moved.
- At this point, some suggest you can use it as-is or mix it into a smooth liquid. I chose to mix it into a smooth liquid using the paint mixer and a power drill. At this point some people pour half of their detergent into another bucket and fill both buckets with warm water and mix. However, since I reduced the Washing Soda amount, I opted to stick with the one bucket.
Storage
There seems to be no prescribe storage all of your new laundry detergent. It seems to be left up to the maker. I have seen were some store it in sterilized 1 gallon mason jars. I have heard where people are storing them in smaller plastic containers where it is easy to handle. Then, I have seen others just leave it in the 5 gallon bucket and scoop it out as needed. We decided to clean an older detergent bottle and refill it as it empties. We still keep the rest in the bucket with the air tight lid and simply mix it again before we have to pour it into the smaller plastic container.
Usage
I guess this really depends on how dirty your clothes are. Some use 1/2 cup for smaller loads and 1 cup for larger loads. I tend to use the cup that comes with the old smaller container that has 1, 2, 3, & 4 markings on it and have been perfectly fine with it. The detergent washes great and the clothes come out smelling really fresh and clean. However, I say you experiment and see what works for you and your family.
And that’s it! Phew!! It seemed like it took forever to get here, but we finally made it to the end. If you have laundry detergent recipes, we’d love to hear what you’re doing!