I recently got together with some ladies from our small group to make another batch of laundry detergent. It is really quite simple and quick! The recipe I got from this site.
Ingredients are: Borax, Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda, Fels-naptha Soap and water! You will also need a grater, saucepan (4 cup capacity), measuring cups (1 and 1/2) and a 5 gallon bucket and lid! 
The bucket will need to be filled with warm tap water about half way.
You can do this in your bathtub if that is easier. I know - exciting picture!
Grate the bar of soap into the saucepan. Add 4 cups of hot tap water.
Stir on medium heat until it is all dissolved. Be patient! I wasn't the first time and it boiled over! Not that big of a deal, I ended up with a really clean stove top (it is soap after all)!
When it is dissolved, add to 1/2 bucket of warm water. Add in 1 cup of Arm & Hammer and 1/2 cup of Borax. Mix until all the soap is dissolved. The hotter the water, the quicker this will be.
Next step - add more water! Fill the bucket almost to the top. Put a lid on it and let sit overnight.
The end result - a big bucket of slime! Your kids will love it! It does gel up, so before putting some in a smaller container, mix it up again and each time after. Then put equal parts water and detergent in an old laundry detergent container (recycle!) and shake well. I use a top loading machine, so I use 5/8th of a cup with each load. I just measured the amount the cap to my container held and now I know to use 2 capfuls. Have fun and happy laundering!
4 comments:
I've made this exact same recipe before and used it for quite a while. For some reason after several weeks of use my washer started to smell mildewy, like old, wet towels, and no matter what I did nothing got rid of it until I went back to commercial detergent. Let me know if you have the same problem or not, or if you have any suggestions on fixing that. I have no idea! Hope it works great for you!
Thanks for this Rita! I've been wondering if this was something I could do. Thanks for making my search for the how-to super easy!
Khara - so sorry to hear about the stinky washer! So far I haven't noticed any mildewey (is that a word?) smells. Did trying everything include vinegar? I've heard of others using that to clean a dishwasher, washer by running it an empty cycle with the vinegar in there.
I tried a vinegar wash and a bleach wash and neither worked. Bummer! It could just be our water. It's very hard.
I'm all for natural and/or homemade products, so since this didn't work for us, I went and got Clorox Green Works detergent and I love it! Not homemade but it works really well!
Post a Comment