Homemade Laundry Detergent

Pinterest also had me interested in making my own laundry detergent.  I would have never thought to do this – or even attempted.  But, you know, Pinterest makes things look super easy and makes you feel like you can accomplish anything! 

The recipe I used can be found here

(step 5 says to pour the "liquid" - FYI mine was NOT liquid)

We were getting low on store-bought detergent, so I went ahead and bought the ingredients to make some.  Pretty simple: Borax, Arm & Hammer Washing Soda, and a bar of Fels Naptha Soap.

 

via google images

Unfortunately, I didn’t take pictures through each step.  But you first have to grate the soap into small pieces so it melts easier.  Then add it to a boiling 4 cups of water.

You continually have to stir, which is the only annoying part.  Your hand gets tired people! Once the soap is fully melted into the water, you add your washing soda & borax.  You have to mix that until its fully dissolved, which takes a little bit – and you have to still continually stir.

Then it’s time to transfer to your jars.  I thought I was doing it wrong, cause my mixture was pretty thick, but I just added some warm water to it to get it mixed a little more.  It still is thick, but I’ve googled that it’s normal.

Now, the big test!  We have a front loading machine, so I googled again to make sure it was completely safe for me to use my homemade mix.  It was. 
The first 2 loads I did, there were clumps of detergent being left in the washer.  That sent me back to google, to see how I could avoid this or if I just made a bad batch. I read that you could just add some more hot water to the mixture.  
It worked perfectly!  I'm not sure the exact amount I added - I added until I was happy with the consistency.  The end consistency was close to the thickness of store bought detergent. Even better, by me adding more water, I got so much more which will last longer! woohoo!