Homemade Laundry Soap

Although this has nothing to do with food recipes, a few people have asked me for this "recipe": Homemade Laundry Soap. The final product doesn't look fancy and it doesn't "foam" much, but it does clean great :)

Ingredients:

2 cups Water

1/3 cup Salt

1 cup Baking Soda

1 cup liquid Castile soap (I use Dr. Bronner's or Mountain Rose Herbs)

Add soda, salt and water to pot of medium-high heat, until mostly dissolved. All liquid soap to water mixture and stir. Transfer to 1-gallon jug (I used a cleaned/rinsed gallon milk jug) and fill remaining jug with water. Use 1/4 cup per load, or 1/2 cup if heavily soiled.

Why I Make My Own Laundry Detergent?

It's completely organic, vegetable-based and 100% biodegradable! No synthetic foaming agents, thickeners or preservatives. Borax and bleach Free. So, I know exactly what I'm washing our clothes in and what we are putting into our septic tank!

Purex VS. My Homemade Soap

Purex Ingredients: Water, Alcohol Ethoxy Sulfate (Cleaning Ingredient), Sodium Carbonate (Water Softener), Linear Alkylbenzene Sulfonate (Cleaning Ingredient), Sodium Chloride (Viscosity Control), Alcohol Ethoxylate (Cleaning Ingredient), Sodium Polyacrylate (Polymer), Fatty Acids (Foam Control), Disodium Diaminostilbene Disulfonic Acid (Brightener), Tetrasodium Edta (Chelator), Methylisothiazolinone (Preservative), Fragrance, Liquitint Blue (Colorant)... HUH?!

My Homemade Soap Ingredients: Water, Organic Coconut Oil, Organic Sunflower Oil, Organic Castor Oil, Citric Acid, Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Baking Soda, Salt, Lavender oil (when desired).

Cost Savings?

Before I started making my own laundry detergent (one year ago), we used Ecos All-Natural or Purex. Basically, I used to switch between the two because Ecos was costly to use all of the time. But, because we have a septic system we didn't want to dump chemicals in there regularly as they can damage the ecosystem of the tank and prevent it from working properly. And frankly, we couldn't afford to buy an all-natural laundry detergent from the store regularly and a chemical-based one simply isn't healthy (for us, or our septic tank)!

I have priced Ecos and Purex below... using my homemade detergent, our cost savings is approximately 9-24 cents per load:

My Homemade Laundry Soap:

1 gallon = 128 oz.

1/4 c. per load = 64 loads

$3.93 per 128 oz. = 6 cents/load

Purex:

100 oz bottle = 66 loads

$9.98 per 100 oz. = 15 cents/load

Ecos (All-Natural):

100 oz bottle = 50 loads

$12.49 per 100 oz. = 24 cents/load

9 to 24 cents per load doesn't seem like much, but figure I do about 6 loads per week. That's about 36 cents per week for my laundry soap (or $18.72/year) - versus - .90-$1.44 per week ($46.80-$74.88/year!!) for Purex or Ecos. That leaves $30-$55 extra in our pockets at the end of the year. Not much to brag about, but that bought half the seeds for our garden this year! :)