Sunday, November 22, 2009

Homemade Laundry Detergent: Liquid

Earlier today, I posted about my homemade powdered laundry detergent. While I do love it, we're switching to liquid for two reasons: (1) the powdered detergent doesn't dissolve all that well, especially in cold-water loads, and (2) I am personally a little uncomfortable with the idea of whirling Borax around in my food processor, then later using the same food processor to chop vegetables for dinner.

We've only used our liquid detergent for one load of sheets, but I think it'll do okay. Here's the recipe!

Leah's Homemade Liquid Laundry Detergent
1 cup liquid castile soap -- I like Dr. Bronner's lavender, which I bought from my local hippie store out of the bulk soap container
1/3 cup washing soda
1/3 cup baking soda
1/3 cup Borax
warm/hot water

Directions:
1) Fill a one-gallon container with 1 cup of liquid castile soap
2) Add about 4 cups warm water
3) Add all powdered ingredients slowly. If possible, stir while adding. Alternatively, shake frequently.
4) Fill container with warm water until full.

Use 1/4 cup per load of laundry.

I should mention that this recipe is adapted from several I found on the interwebs. If you wanna see my sources, see this recipe and this recipe.

Good luck, and let me know if you try it!


3 comments:

  1. Look at you being all homemaker-ish! I tried making my own cleaning products for awhile, but I never tried laundry detergent.

    I got sick of my other cleaners because I HATE the smell of vinegar. But they do work well!

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  2. I know! I'm really pretty proud of myself. I also made a cleaner with vinegar that I found in my Real Simple magazine a few months ago. The vinegar smell takes some getting used to...

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  3. Yeah, I've always preferred liquid to powder laundry detergent, since I was everything on cold. I would also have to get used to the vinegar smell, other than I rarely clean, so that probably wouldn't be an issue. :)

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