Sunday, October 18, 2009

Home Made Powder Laundry Detergent


Home Made Powder Laundry Detergent

A co-worker (Ms. Carol) was telling me about how she found a recipe for a powder laundry detergent. Well…..if you know me at all, you know I'm (cheap) frugal and I'm game to try anything that is considered home made. I have posted before about home made liquid detergent so I thought this would be great to try and add to the "Back To The Basics" section of my site. Anything that works and is cheaper is what we are after, right?

Carol had gone to some type of crafts festival in Ohio (I think) and found a booth selling this detergent for $8 a jar. WOW, considering it cost $2.09 to make. The most expensive ingredient is the bar of soap. Needless to say they were making a healthy profit. Carol found the recipe on line at the Fels Naptha website and we decided to give it a try. It works great and costs $.06/load.

Ingredients:
1 bar Fels Naptha Soap ($1.29 at Krogers)
1 cup Boarax ($3.89 at Krogers)
1 cup Arm N Hammer Washing Soda ($2.89 at Krogers)

Directions:
You need to shred/crumble the bar of soap. Personally, I shredded mine in the food processor and then put it into the blended on the "crushed ice" speed. Worked perfect and wasn't difficult to get out of the blender. Once you have crunched up the soap into little bitty pieces (as close to powder as you can get), mix it with a cup of Borax and a cup of Arm N Hammer Washing Soda. Pour the ingredients into a glass jar and shake it up to mix it well. And now…you're done. It's that simple. You use 2 Tablespoons per load.

Couple of Points:
1) I have done 7 loads with it and it has worked just fine. For heavily soiled items, I would keep and extra bar of the soap on hand and rub it into the soiled areas and brush with a soft bristle toothbrush.

2) I purchased the ingredients at Krogers (obviously), but I would bet you can get all of the ingredients at Wal-Mart for cheaper. I will check on that this week and revise the cost per load accordingly.

3) It makes 4 cups of detergent and there are 16 tablespoons in a cup, so at 2 tablespoons, you will get 32 loads from this detergent. I do 6 loads of laundry a week so $.36/week times 52 weeks a year = $18.72. Let me say that again.....the cost for laundry detergent for my husband and myself would be $18.72 a year.

Now you have liquid detergent that costs $.03/load and powder detergent that cost $.06/load. Why would you ever buy store bought laundry detergent again. Sit down and figure up what you spend in detergent a month, then do the math. Imagine how much money you could save making your own. Not to mention the fact that this stuff is healthier for the environment and us than what they are putting out in the stores these days.

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