The Dirt On My New Laundry Detergent

Between college and grad school, Hubbie and I spent two years working with a student ministry. While there, we got to take the Strengths Test from StrengthsFinder 2.0, by Tim Roth. One of my top five was Achiever, in which I take great satisfaction from being busy, productive, and accomplishing things with excellence. When we decided that I would stay home with Kiddo, I became determined to Achieve homemaking! Today's experiment is evidence of me Achieving the crap out of my little apartment homestead... because why else would someone take time to make something that you can buy at every grocery and big box store on the planet?

That's right, kids. Today, I made laundry detergent.

In an ongoing effort to squeeze five and a half quarters out of every penny to our name, making our own detergent helps fulfill that margin. Plus, the stuff from the store contains all kinds of really ugly chemicals, sulfates, and fragrances that are super not excellent for our heavenly vessels. The homemade stuff, though, only has three ingredients (four if you count water. Save the whales!). 

Borax (NOT BORIC ACID) is comprised of sodium, boron, oxygen, and water, and is what you find in the fancy-pants (re: expensive) green detergents that help keep the lights on at Whole Foods.

Washing Soda (NOT BAKING SODA), or sodium carbonate for the Sheldon's of the world, is just salt and limestone. This also fits nicely into our crunchy granola manifesto.

I used Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps in Lavender, partly so I wouldn't have to add essential oils (I don't have high-grade ones... yet...), and also because they're super fancy organic / fair-trade / happy for everyone soaps. Guys, every dollar that you spend supports something somewhere, so make sure you're supporting causes that are ethical. Nobody likes child labor... except for war lords. Don't be a war lord.

I used the recipe that's available on a thousand other green-minded blogs, converting and twisting absolutely nothing to make it my own. (If it's not broke...)

I can offer tips, though. Stay tuned for tips.

Okay, so first I grated up the soap so it would dissolve easily into the water. I've read that you can also use a food processor for this, but I killed mine while making Kiddo his food, so I just used elbow grease... It kind of looks like mozzarella, no?

Dissolve the soap in 8 cups of water (or 2 quarts, depending on where in the world Carmen Sandiego finds you). Your goal here is a delightful pot of Soap Soup. 

Stir. Please don't forget to stir, even if the baby wakes up and demands to be removed from his poop-infused diaper. Keep going back to stir... just don't leave said baby on the changing table. That's not safe.

Now you're going to need a bucket. Supposedly you can find them free at benevolent bakeries, I got mine for a song (and a buck fifty) at Walmart.

In said bucket, combine a cup each of Borax and Washing Soda with 4 1/2 gallons (72 cups or 18 quarts... Mad Math, guys) of PIPING hot water. For the record, my Borax box gave Fort Knox a run for it's money, and brought back PTSD episodes related to first grade milk cartons.

Stir... preferably with a spoon that's long enough to reach the bottom of your bucket... or stop halfway in the filling process and scrape up all the powdery goodness that's gotten compressed at the bottom. Basically, avoid sticking your hand in the bucket of PIPING HOT SOAPY WATER. Just take my word for it...

Combine your Soap Soup with piping hot magma borax/soda water. Stir some more.

Let everything cool a bit and then stick a cover on that sucker. The last thing you need is the cats knocking over five gallons of soapy mess. At this point, you're going to want to let the detergent hang out overnight, so it has a chance to thicken / congeal / get a little gross. Then, ta-daaaaaaa...

Detergent! Use 1/2 cup for normal loads, or a full cup for literally every load of laundry done in my house. (I have a baby, he makes messes All. The. Time.)

For the economically vigilant among us, let's break down and crunch the numbers. (Why are we so violent towards numbers? Maybe this negative attitude we've adopted is why the entire rest of the world is better than us at math.)

Borax: 76 oz for $3.97, or $0.42 / bucket

Washing Soda: 55 oz for $3.24, or $0.47 / bucket

Fair-Trade Happy Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap: $4.22 / bar, or $4.22 / bucket 

...all together, $5.11 for the bucket of detergent.

We have a five-gallon bucket, and if we assume a full cup per load of laundry (though most people probably use less... not everyone is as filthy as we are), we can assume our bucket gives us 80 loads of laundry (160 for the non-snot-encrusted masses). 

So, we're spending $0.06 per load for our 80 loads, even less for our less-soiled loads! Compare that to the $0.15 average cost per load for store-bought detergent, and I'd call a savings of almost two-thirds a win.

Guys.

How cool is that? I made my own detergent today! I love projects allow me to treat my family better while being frugal... Best of both worlds. I really feel like I Achieved something today!