Homemade Laundry Detergent

That's right. I'm jumping on the homemade detergent bandwagon. I don't really know anyone who's doing this, but according to Pinterest, I'm way behind the times.

I actually didn't get this particular recipe from Pinterest. I got it from the Dog Island Farm blog. I really like their posts and the fact that they farm, smack-dab in the middle of suburbia amazes me.

I digress...

I bought all the ingredients required. Bar of soap, washing soda (found at Joanne's Place - health food store), Borax (already had this) and a tub (bought at IKEA. Originally intended to use for the excess of toys but it's perfect for this too).

**A word of caution about the soap you decide to use. I bought some beautiful smelling soap from our local soap store, SIMPLE. It's delicious - a bit of a lemony and earthy scent. BUT - when you grate soap, the beautiful smell that you love so much can become a little noxious. Seriously, I just grated the soap and I've got myself a scent headache. So, a word to the wise, choose an unscented bar or a scented one that you either love so much that you won't be knocked out by it or be prepared to hate it for the rest of your life. **

Add the grated soap + 6 cups of water to a pot. Melt on medium heat.
Add the 1/2 cup Borax and 1/2 cup Washing soda until dissolved
Remove from heat
Pour 4 cups of hot water into your laundry detergent bucket of choice
Add soap/Borax/washing soda mixture and stir
A 1 gallon + 6 cups of water (1 gallon = 16 cups. Thank you Google) and stir again.
Let sit overnight or at least 6 hours prior to use

Voila! Detergent.

Make sure to stir before using. I used 1/3 cup in my first load and it seemed to work great, at least, my clothes appear clean. And luckily (for me), the soap smell didn't linger. I don't think I could have stomached smelling that soap for the next however long it takes to use up all this detergent. I had to hold my breath last night while washing the pot I melted the soap in!
I should also mention that I have a front-loading, high efficiency (HE) washer. Because this type of detergent doesn't 'sud' very much, it is HE safe.

I made this back in October. (Just blogging about it now...). The silver thing in the detergent is a fallen measuring cup. I've since started using 1/4 Cup instead of 1/3 and my laundry still comes out clean.