Homemade Laundry Detergent

I need to start this post with a huge Thank You. All the heart-felt emails, calls and comments have both John and I completely humbled and Thankful. We are so lucky to have each and every one of you in our lives. Your out-pouring of love has truly helped us both. Thank YOU!

Ok, now I can put the tissues away and get on to the fun stuff. :)


Ever since I read Sasha's post, over at Lemonade Makin Mama, on homemade laundry detergent I've been wanting to try it. I don't know why, but I was intrigued by it. Captivated. You can make your own? Really? And it works? My inner home-maker self took over from there. I HAD to try it.

Lucky for me, Sasha had done all the hard work. Researching whether to make liquid or powder, how much for each load etc. And her pictures are beautiful. She's genious, and fun, and a girl after my own heart. You must check her out. So here we go.

This past saturday night I went on a hunt for the 3 ingredients.

• 1 box of Borax (found in the laundry isle)

• 1 box of Arm and Hammer Laundry super washing soda/ washing powder(also found in the laundry isle. Not to be confused by Arm and Hammer Baking Soda or regular laundry detergent. Make sure the box says laundry washing soda. Ok? Got it? awesome.)

• 1 10 pk. of Ivory Soap Bars (I found mine in the bodywash/soap isle)

I want to say the total for these 3 items was around $12 buckeroos. Even more awesome-er.

So after gathering my items in my buggy and being on the verge of annoying with excitment (Yes, I know, it's a sickness to be this excited about laundry detergent). I skipped home and couldn'tgetinthedoorfastenoughtogetstarted. :) I'm pretty sure the cheese and butter had to be put away by John because I dropped the rest of the bags of groceries on the floor. Hehe.

So here goes.

The long-awaited recipe. And I don't blame you for not reading all the stuff leading up to this point. :)

Original Recipe

1 Cup Borax

1 Cup Washing Powder

1 Bar Ivory soap, Grated

Mix well with a wisk. Or your fingers, because I like getting my hands dirty.

For each load of laundry use 1 Tbsp. of powder (for a energy efficient model) Because we still yearn for one of those and still have top loaders, I use about 1/4 cup. Which is still waaaaay less than what I use when I buy the bottled stuff.

I bought a really pretty jar from Walmart to put it in. Because I'm an over acheiever. But you could easily use tupperware or anything with a lid.

But when I put in the recipe above I only filled about 1/8th of the jar. So I ended up quadruple-ing the recipe.

This stuff smells just like my Gram's laundry. I remember cuddling up in blankets when I was little and this is THE SMELL from those blankets. The Gram smell. I'm hooked. And just for extra goodness, it's also safer on the environment, and about $0.04 per load.

I'd say it's worth the 5 minutes of prep. I can get on board with that. And best of all, now I have a pretty jar sitting on my dryer and not that jug of bright blue/orange/green. It's the little pretty things that get me. Every. Single. Time.

In case your wondering, because I know I did, I still use my stain remover spray or bleach  if I need it. This is just detergent and isn't a cure-all for all your laundry needs. I'm still researching that ;)

I do hope you'll try this recipe. I am just so excited to share it with you!