How to Make Laundry Soap for Three Cents a Load

by Julie Finn January 30, 2011, 12:30 pm 34 Comments

Have you been wanting to make your own green cleaning supplies? Here’s how to make laundry soap that’s eco-friendly and only costs three cents a load!

When my little girls were just babies in cloth diapers, I spent a lot of money on eco-friendly, clean-rinsing, free and clear laundry detergent. The amount of money that our family saved by using cloth diapers way more than made up for the gourmet laundry detergent, but in the name of frugality, and since the girls’ cloth diapers have long since been passed on to other mommas, it was a habit that I needed to kick.

Today, my six-year-old daughter makes our family’s laundry soap as part of her household chores. It’s not a regular chore, since this five-cup recipe lasts us about three months at a time, but it’s an easy recipe, and it’s fun to grate the soap and whisk the ingredients.

Our laundry soap recipe costs us between three and four cents a load, depending on whether or not I put in any fancy extras. It’s made entirely from ingredients that we already have around the house, lives in a pretty Mason jar with a fabric top, and cleans our clothes as well as a store-bought laundry detergent. Here’s how to make it:

How to Make Laundry Soap

Ingredients:

1/2 cup washing soda. We also keep this on hand as a fabric dye fixative when we tie-dye.

1/2 cup borax. We also keep this on hand for science experiments, such as making gak.

1 cup bar soap, grated. Here’s where you really get to make your own preferences come alive. I prefer to use Fels Naptha, a laundry soap bar, because it’s made specifically for laundry, and while it is harsher than body soap, it’s less harsh than many of the ingredients in commercially-processed soap, and it’s a very effective cleaning agent. However, some people prefer to use body soap here, whether it’s Ivory or Dr. Bronner’s, and even though these soaps don’t clean or rinse as well as Fels Naptha, there are other ways to make up for those deficiencies while protecting super-sensitive skin.

To this basic batch, you can add other ingredients as you wish. For instance:

1/2 cup baking soda. I do include this in every batch, as a cleaning and deodorizing agent.

1/2 cup Oxyclean or similar. This is a color-safe bleaching agent, and I do not include it in my own laundry soap, although I do add it to my wash on an as-needed basis.

Directions:

Simply whisk the dry ingredients together, and your laundry soap is ready to use.

In my he washing machine, I use 1 tablespoon of laundry detergent. If I had a conventional top-loading washing machine, or if I used a body soap bar in my recipe, I would use 2 tablespoons. I also always pour in a glug or so of white vinegar into the rinse compartment of my washing machine–vinegar is a rinse agent, something that is really necessary no matter what laundry detergent you use, and it’s also a cleaning agent and deoderizer in its own right.

Now, my recipe doesn’t come with any “added stain fighting ingredients” or “whitening your whites” nonsense–frankly, that’s just overkill, and effectively managing your laundry without it takes only a couple of minutes each day.

For instance, when clothing is removed, it’s briefly inspected for stains, and any stains are immediately spot-treated with a bar of Fels Naptha that we keep on a shelf in the bathroom. Spot-treated clothing is then thrown in with the regular dirty laundry.

I also sort my laundry according to how I want to wash it. If I’m washing heavily soiled clothing, perhaps from the garden or the workshop, or white items, such as linens or bath towels, then I add 2 tablespoons of off-brand Oxyclean to my regular laundry detergent to boost the cleaning power of my detergent.

When I wash items that come into intimate contact with the body, such as underpants or sheets and pillowcases, or if someone in the family is ill, I add several drops of tea tree oil to my regular laundry detergent as a disinfectant, antifungal, and antibacterial agent.

And I line-dry in the sun whenever possible!

Written by Julie Finn

I'm a writer, crafter, Zombie Preparedness Planner, and homeschooling momma of two kids who will hopefully someday transition into using their genius for good, not the evil machinations and mess-making in which they currently indulge. I'm interested in recycling and nature crafts, food security, STEM education, and the DIY lifestyle, however it's manifested--making myself some underwear out of T-shirts? Done it. Teaching myself guitar? Doing it right now.

Visit my blog Craft Knife for a peek at our very weird handmade homeschool life, and my etsy shop Pumpkin+Bear for a truly odd number of rainbow-themed beeswax pretties.