Homemade Laundry detergent & Fabric Softener

I haven't tried making my own laundry detergent & fabric softener yet, but I just might. It seem to be easy and will save you tons of money in the long run. As we all know laundry detergent and fabric softener can be very costly, especially when you have a large family like myself. Here are a few easy tips I found on Tipnut and Ehow on how to make your own.

For the laundry detergent the recommended soaps to use are: Ivory, Fels-Naptha, Sunlight bar soap, Kirk's Hardwater castile and Zote. You can find pretty much all the ingredients in Wal-mart or a Hardware store.

Laundry Detergent


Recipe #1
1 quart Water (boiling)
2 cups Bar soap (grated)
2 cups Borax-76oz=$2.98 @ Walmart
2 cups Washing Soda

• Add finely grated bar soap to the boiling water and stir until soap is melted. You can keep on low heat until soap is melted.
• Pour the soap water into a large, clean pail and add the Borax and Washing Soda. Stir well until all is dissolved.
• Add 2 gallons of water, stir until well mixed.
• Cover pail and use 1/4 cup for each load of laundry. Stir the soap each time you use it (will gel).

Recipe #2
Hot water
1 cup Washing Soda
1/2 cup Borax
1 Soap bar

• Grate the bar soap and add to a large saucepan with hot water. Stir over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.
• Fill a 10 gallon pail half full of hot water. Add the melted soap, Borax and Washing soda, stir well until all powder is dissolved. Top the pail up with more hot water.
• Use 1 cup per load, stirring soap before each use (will gel).

Fabric Softener

1 cup baking soda

6 cups distilled white vinegar

8 cups water

You will need a one gallon container

First add the baking soda to the plastic container.

Next add 1 cup of water to start with.

Slowly add the vinegar to the bottle as the vinegar and baking soda will start to fizz.

Then add the rest of the water swirling around & cover venting the top a few times.

Last add the essential oil.

Add 1 cup in your final rinse cycle for each load but give the bottle a good shake to stir up the essential oil if using.

If you want your detergent or softener scented you can add 10-15 drops of lemon, lavendar or orange essentials oils. I told you the recipes were really simple and yield a lot of long lasting detergent. I read a lot of good reviews. I was pretty skeptical about walking about smelling like vinegar, but from what people say you can't smell it at all! Let me know if you try it, That's frugal living for you!