An item that has long been on my "To Do" list, was to make my own laundry detergent. One, it feels wasteful throwing out those big jugs of plastic each week. We're not completely zero-waste, but we have gotten increasingly more sustainable over the years and hyper-aware about our plastic consumption and our contribution to the landfill problem.
But even more of a priority to us is, quite honestly, frugality. We had a savings rate of 75% last year (meaning, we saved 75% of our income ...and then invested it) in an effort to achieve financial independence. (Yes, there is a book coming out about this very soon). We continue to question every aspect of our spending and determine how we can cut that cost down even further. One of the items we've been intending to tackle is the cost of our laundry. We already line-dry in the hot Florida sun, which has cut out the cost of the dryer. (According to blogger Mr. Money Mustache in 2011, hanging your clothes to dry "will save you about 50 cents of electricity per load, and at the US average of 400 loads per year (!?), you’re looking at $200 annually.") However, the cost of laundry detergent has been taking up a big portion of our grocery bill.
There's a ton of recipes online when you research "How To Make Your Own Laundry Detergent." We Googled and Pinterested and scoured the web to compare recipes. Most of them mentioned the need for Dr. Bronner's Castile Soap and Borax. You can certainly do it that way, but we honestly still balked at the prices and decided to dig deeper. We went so far as to research "How To Make Castile Soap" and then "How To Make Lye." Feasibly, we could use the ashes from our firepit to make our own lye to make our own soap... Mind. Blown. However, we found an easier and less expensive way to go about this.
We ordered a Fels Naptha Laundry Bar for less than a dollar. Amazon shipped it to us in less than 24 hours. Everything else, we already had at home! All you need to add is water, salt, and baking soda!
When you look up recipes for this approach, such as this one from the Duggar family, you'll see that they expressly say that you cannot use baking soda--and that you need to use "washing soda," instead. They correctly note that it must be sodium carbonate, not sodium bicarbonate.
The thing is, you don't have to go and purchase "Arm & Hammer Washing Soda"(sodium carbonate) if you already have "Arm & Hammer Baking Soda" (sodium bicarbonate) in your pantry. All you have to do is heat it! This turns it into sodium carbonate. Here's a science-y article that explains what happens chemically, if interested. Put the baking soda on a tray and set it in an oven for 1 hour at 200°F or for 30 minutes at 400°F. You can feel and see the difference--it goes from being lumpy powder to an ultra-fine powder.
Some recipes call for Borax (alkaline mineral salt), but all you really need is salt. Salt naturally cleans and softens your garments.
Step 1. Cut up the bar of Fels-Naptha soap into small cubes
Step 2. Put the small cubes into a food processer. Grind it up
Step 3. Add 1 cup of salt.
Step 4. Add 1 cup of "sodium carbonate" (Baking Soda that has been heated)
Step 5. Grind these up together in the food processer to mix well.
This gives you the powder form you see in my old milk jug. We took just a portion of this powder to put into two old plastic laundry jugs we still had empty (reuse/recycle!). We just eyeballed it. This recipe should make 5 gallons of liquid soap, so we judged how much powder we thought would make 5 of these jugs. We put the cork on the remainder to use once we run out of liquid soap in these jugs.
So, Step 6. Add hot water to a small portion of the powder in a jug, close the lid, and shake vigorously to mix well.
Shake the jug before each use, as it will gel. This recipe should yield about 180 loads in a top-loading machine (and even more for a front-loading machine that takes less liquid). Note: You can add a few drops of essential oils (like lavender) to the mixture to get a certain scent. But honestly, we really like the scent of the Fels-Naptha soap and we don't find it necessary. It smells very fresh!
Assuming you already have salt and baking soda in your pantry, then the bar of Fels-Naptha soap is all you need, which is less than a dollar. If your pantry is empty and you need to get salt or baking soda (or washing soda), then this recipe may cost you around $13-$20 to buy the supplies needed, though you would only need 1 cup from those boxes. Not bad at all! It's still drastically cheaper than the cost of a normal jug of laundry detergent and you'd have ample left over for future gallons of detergent.
How does it work? Fantastic! Not only does the Fels-Naptha soap give everything a fresh scent, but we were surprised at how clean everything was, too! Regular clothes, wash rags, and even our white bath mats all came out beautifully.
Want more tips? Here's a blog about how we keep our phone bill down to $36 each month. Sign up for my email newsletter to learn about our upcoming book on financial independence. It will discuss the FIRE Movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early), our personal journey and philosophies, and over 100 tips that helped us increase our savings rate.
Note: This blog has Amazon affiliate links. This means that we will receive a small monetary compensation if you order any of these from Amazon after following our links. Every little bit helps, so we thank you in advance!
Below, we've included links to both the soap bar and the baking soda. We've also included the washing soda and Borax, just in case you decide that is the route you'd rather try.