A while back, I made some homemade powdered laundry detergent. It was good and worked well, but when my food processor died, I went back to regular washing powder. I've since bought a new food processor, but never went back to making my own until recently, when I found a couple of recipes for different liquid laundry detergents. I took what I liked from each (based on what I knew each item did) and came up with a mixed recipe of my own. I made up a batch and tried it out and it works really well and is super cheap per batch. Here's a picture of it in the dispensing cup.
Doesn't look too exciting, but guess there isn't really anything exciting about laundry detergent anyway!
So, here's the recipe I used (although there are certainly more and different ones on the web).
1/2 cup Borax (about 100gms)
1/2 cup soap flakes or grated soap (I used 70 gms lux flakes)
1/2 cup baking soda (150gms)
1/2 cup washing soda crystals (100gms)
Into a large saucepan, place 1 ltr of warm water and then sprinkle over the soap flakes. heat gently until all the soap has dissolved (do not boil). Add borax and washing soda crystals and stir till dissolved. finally add the Baking Soda and stir through. Pour into a large bucket (10ltr size). Add 2 ltrs of hot water and stir through till combined, then add another 5 ltrs of warm water and mix. Allow to cool slightly, then pour off into cleaned out old milk bottles (I used 3 x 3ltr ones) or other similar container. Or if your bucket has a lid, you could just pop the lid on and scoop it out from there as you need it.
Once you have filled the bottles, add 10-15 drops of your favourite essential oils and shake them through. Lemon is really nice and so are Eucalyptus, lavender and patchouli (a couple of drops of each) or any other combination you like. Remember it will smell stronger in the bottle than it will on your clothes, as they will only get a tiny bit each wash.
Leave to set overnight and it will set a little gluggy, usually with a little separation. I shake my bottles before each use, so it all mixes through again. If you use the bucket to store it, just ensure you get a little of the gel looking substance and well as the watery stuff.
1/2 cup per load and I use this in my front loader, as it is very low sudsing. And cost? $2.80 for just on the 9 ltrs. That's 72 washes for $2.80, or not quite 4 cents per load!
My initial purchase obviously cost me a bit more - 1kg borax, 700gm box lux flakes, 300gm box of baking soda and 1kg box washing crystals - total cost $18.50, however, there is still enough borax, lux flakes and washing soda crystals to make another 9 batches, with the simple addition of another couple boxes of baking soda and that is dirt cheap! That amounts to nearly 2 loads every day for the year at a grand total of $29.75 in products! Real cheap and also much better for the environment than some of the commercial ones out there.
