Ingredients : Borax, Washing Soda, and Fels-Naptha
Homemade laundry detergent is easy and cheap to make. There are a lot of different ratios and ingredients out there, but for our purposes we wanted the most economical method possible. We may concern ourselves with adding oils and such later on, but for now we sought after a simple concoction that could be easily stored for a long period of time.
When it comes to storing items we generally look to two schools of thought, space requirement and shelf life. Because of this we opted for the dry version of homemade laundry soap.
To start here are the 3 basic ingredients:
- 20 Mule Team Borax
- Washing Soda
- Fels-Naptha
Many different soaps can be used in place of the Fels-Naptha the key is to stay away from soaps with lotions.
Grating the Fels-Naptha
Step 1: Finely grate 1 bar of soap into a bowl or dish. With the dry version it must finely grated or you will end up with chunky detergent. A food processor makes for quick results.
Step 2: Add 1 cup of Washing Soda and 1 cup of Borax to the grated soap in a large mixing bowl.
Mix!
Step 3: Mix thoroughly. That’s it you have laundry detergent!
Use 1 or 2 tablespoons per load. Heavily soiled and large loads may require 3 tablespoons.
At the time of this post we have done about 15 loads with great results.
Borax has many other uses making this a very important item to keep in bulk. According to the official 20 Mule Team website Borax has an infinite shelf life. Of course like all our storage preps it should be stored in a cool, dark, and dry place. Check out the many uses for Borax here.
