How to: Make Your Own Natural Laundry Detergent for Pennies
Posted on Oct 17, 2011 in DIY Projects, Emergency Preparedness & SurvivalKevin Hayden – TruthisTreason.net
I posted a similar article a few weeks ago, but it was merely YouTube videos of various recipes. I’ve been working on making this at home and here is what I’ve come up with so far!
I’ve compiled several different recipes for both liquid and powdered laundry detergent.
While I prefer liquid soap, and it is cheaper, the powdered version seems to work a bit better and take up less storage space. Your results may vary. You can make yours more natural or less, depending on your preferences. The soaps and ingredients used in the following recipes are for a natural soap. While some of the ingredients listed on the particular products may sound synthetic or highly processed, they are not. For instance, Fels-Naptha bar soap has a lot of ingredients that sound like chemicals; however, they are merely derivatives of products such as coconut oil, palm oil, salts, ash, etc.
We’ll start with my powdered recipe first:
2 cups of Borax (20 Mule Team) ~$5.00, 76 oz box.
2 cups of Washing Soda (Arm & Hammer) ~$5.00, 55 oz box.
1 bar of Fels-Naptha Soap ~$1.50, 5.5 oz.
1/2 bar of natural soap – your choice OR another bar of Fels-Naptha ~$1.50-5.00, 3 to 6 oz.
Finely grate the soap bar and mix with powders. That’s it!
I’ve found that putting them all into a bowl that has a tight fitting lid and shaking is the easiest method for mixing and breaking up any clumps in the powders.
For traditional washers, one heaping tablespoon should be plenty for all but the dirtiest of clothing. For grease and heavy stains, two tablespoons could be used.
For high efficiency or front loading washers, a small tablespoon is more than enough, but you can add more to suit your needs.
This recipe should yield roughly 6 cups, or 48 ounces, thereby affording between 80-120 loads based on how much you use for each load.
Depending on how much you spend for additional soap (you could use more Fels-Naptha if you’d like, but I prefer a bit more fragrance, so I use a French-milled lavender soap in addition), you can expect to spend a total of $6.00-8.00 for the finished product and this recipe takes only a few minutes to make!
Compare that with the costs of traditional, highly-processed detergents such as Tide, which can easily cost $15.00 and upwards for the same 80-90 loads. These detergents contain a lot of chemicals that can break down fabrics and irritate the skin, not to mention introduce hormone-altering substances into your life. Why pay twice as much for something that only harms you and your clothing when this recipe is so easy?
For the liquid recipe, I’ve come up with two different recipes; one for light loads and one for heavily soiled clothing:
Light, everyday use:
1 1/2 cups Borox
1 cup Washing Soda
1 bar of Fels-Naptha
10 gallons of water
20-50 drops of natural lavender oil (anti-microbial benefits)
Grate the Fels-Naptha and melt with 1 qt. of water, over low-medium heat. Combine all ingredients into a 5-gallon bucket of warm/hot water. Stir vigorously to prevent powders from hardening into clumps, and let sit over night, covered. It will begin to gel by the morning, so using a whisk, stir until a smooth consistency is reached.
Pour half of mixture into another 5-gallon bucket and fill both with hot water to their capacity, totaling 10 gallons of soap. Add natural oils of your choice (I recommend lavender for its anti-microbial features). Dispense into 1-gallon jugs or similar containers (You can get milk jugs from Starbucks for free, just ask them).
Use 1 cup for large loads.
For heavily soiled loads, I alter the recipe and make liquid soap with the powdered recipe – 2 cups of Borax, 2 cups of Washing Soda, more bar soap, etc. You could also use this version for regular laundry and reduce the amount to 1/2 cup per load.
The liquid soap can be made for as little as $0.23 per gallon/16 loads. In order to wash 96 loads, you’ve only spent about $1.40 or so! Using the doubled recipe, you’re still down to about $0.45 per gallon.
(Adding the natural oils does not create an overly powerful fragrance. It maintains a rather faint, clean smell – so to all the guys out there, don’t be afraid to add the oils or use a scented bar soap!)
Related Articles:
- How to: Make Your Own Laundry Soap ($0.20 per Gallon?)
- How to: Make Homemade Powdered Laundry Soap
- Cheap Luxury Tiles? Pennies per Square Foot!
- How To: Make Your Own Green Cleaning Supplies
Tiny URL for this post: http://tinyurl.com/3cs6glp
Great article, I am sure this will help many people in these uncertain economic times. Followed you on twitter, and tweeted the article to my followers @isurvivalskills
Thanks! I appreciate the support and assistance!
Cheers,
Hayden
Founder, TruthisTreason.net
HI,
Great article – much appreciated. I agree about limiting unnecessary chemical contact in its various forms. When we look at the ingredients list for the Fels-Naptha it looks like it might not be as chemical free as one would want. In your exp would another more chemical free soap work or is that a key part of the success of the mix?
PEG-6 METHYL ETHER
“Other MODERATE concerns: Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive)”
http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ingredient.php?ingred06=704630
Regards and thanks for sharing.
Before we started making gallons and gallons of this soap, my g/f and I read up on the ingredients in Fels-Naptha in order to decide whether we should use it or another soap. Fels-Naptha IS one of the better soaps for laundry as it removes stains, lifts grease, etc etc while other regular soaps won’t do this as well. Furthermore, it was mostly made from various oils – palm, coconut, and/or derivatives thereof. When I got to the PEG-6 Methyl Ether, I didn’t research it much as I’ve never really known methyl ether to be harmful… but I’m not a chemist, either.
That page you quoted is using the heading of, “Organ System Toxicity” as a category title further down and it then states the level of toxicity. This is a standardized data sheet and PEG-6 methyl ether is, “Classified as not expected to be potentially toxic or harmful” according to Health Canada. HOWEVER… according to another data sheet from the 60′s and 70′s, it states that PEG-6 methyl ether COULD be a skin irritant and several other sources state that it should not come into contact with damaged or injured skin.
So, we have some seemingly conflicted information, so let’s take it a step further. Methyl Ether is the etherification of methyl alcohol – or methanol. Methanol is poisonous if digested and is used as a fuel source, antifreeze, and various solvents.
As for the PEG-6 portion, that stands for POLYETHYLENE GLYCOL.
According to data sheets, PEG can be a skin irritant, but the US Patent Office includes that it can produce wide, systemic toxicity. I believe this is relating to the digestion or absorption of the glycol, similar to methanol.
Now… does Fels-Naptha work really well for cleaning clothes? Yes. Does it contain large amounts of PEG-6 methyl ether? No. Do all soaps contain methyl ether? Pretty much.
It’s really up to you whether you want to use it or continue looking for a truly, truly natural soap. However, even methanol occurs in nature (wood alcohol). Annnd, Fels-Naptha can be purchased for a measly $1.00 / 5.5 oz bar.
If I had to somehow rate Fels-Naptha for overall use in a “nearly natural detergent” I would give it my unscientific 8.75 out of 10 while most soaps would receive closer to a 5 or 6.
So there you have it! Hayden’s UnScientific Soap Research Lecture. LoL! Good luck and let me know if you use something else, have better results with other soaps, or if this has helped any! I certainly learned something tonight!
Cheers,
Kevin Hayden
Founder, TruthisTreason.net
I use ‘South of France’ brand soap for the powder mix, no dyes or chemicals- good alternative to Fels Naptha. All organic and vegetable based. Works great! Gardenia is my favorite
contender – where you buy ” South of France” soap ? tnx
Thank you for sharing this recipe! My friend and I started a laundry service from our homes a few years ago. We found a little tip that we use on every load now. White vinegar. Add 3/4 cup into the rinse cycle and it acts as a natural fabric softner, saves money, is eco-friendly and helps keep your washing machine clean.
Boston Laundry Care
Thanks for the recipes. I will definitely be trying them. But why does the powder version have to be a higher concentration per load than the liquid making it cost more per load? Is it because it doesn’t dissolve completely in the washing machine and you therefore have to use more? The powder version seems much simpler and with 2 young kids I don’t really want a million jugs of the liquid sitting around so I would prefer to use that one. Thanks.