I'm Gonna Wash That Grime Right Outta...

That Shirt!

I made my own laundry detergent! Yes, me! Be amazed, people, be amazed.
I thought I would share the process and outcome with you!

• These are my ingredients. That's it. And I think these cost me about $8. I only got one bar of soap for the time being. If I like it I'll get more.

•  The first thing you do it grate the soap. Yes, grate it. I went to the Dollar Tree and got a cheese grater just for this job and I'm glad I did. It was messy. And looked just like cheese. The kids thought I was cooking something wonderful. In hind sight, I needed a finer grater though - I was making a powder and these pieces were too big. Anyway, grate up the entire thing into a container.

• Next you add in your Washing Soap and Borax. One cup of each.

• Be careful when you open your Borax in these new fangle boxes...it spilled all over me. I'm glad this was a washing agent because it got all over my pants.

• Next you mix it all up in your container. I, again, got this from the Dollar Tree just for this use. You can see where it would have been better to grate the soap finer. My soap chunks are too...chunky. It should have been more powdery. Oh well. Lesson learned. The scoop is an old OxiClean one.

• So once it's all mixed together, use 1 tablespoon of the mixture in the wash. Here I'm washing Mac's sheets.

And Voila! Done!
I do have to say that we've been very big on perfume free in the last 4 years. I used All Free & Clear most recently and Marshall and I both thought it smelled like chemicals, even though it was "perfume free." And the Fels Naptha soap does have a clean "scent" to it. It's not bad, but it does have a scent.
It does a good job - I've only washed the sheets so far. We'll see how it does with clothes with some ground-in, dried stains.

But it seems the #1 question I've gotten is, "WHY?" Why not just buy the giant container or Tide or go back to using the all-natural stuff we used before (Allen's Natually, of course, which we loved).
When we started cloth diapering, I used Allen's to wash the diapers. And I realized that I loved the dye- and perfume-free detergent and if it could get gross poop off a diaper, it surely could take care of the ketchup stain on my favorite shirt.

I loved Allen's. It lasted forever. But I thought I could try to make my own. A little cheaper and didn't have to wait for it to be shipped to me. - which was good because when I got home from the store with my ingredients I discovered Mac had peed all over his bed (nap with no pull-up). So the concoction was put to use right away!

I'm not "crunchy," or even super "green." I just wanted to see if I could do it myself. I wanted to save money and KNOW what I was using to wash my clothes. I don't know if I'll do it again, but I figured it was worth a try, right? That's why I did it.