Making Laundry Detergent

I decided recently to make my own laundry detergent to use on both our clothing and my cloth diapers. It's a fairly simple recipe but time consuming. I used the recipe from the Duggers' family website and made a couple of changes. I've made the dry powder before for my diapers but decided to do the liquid this time as it seems to be cheaper in the long run. It makes a 5 gallon bucket worth of liquid detergent. I also made the softener sponges for in the dryer as well since I was running out of both my All Free & Clear and my dryer sheets. I have pictures of the process to make it more interesting. LOL I'm looking forward to seeing how it all works out when I start using it tomorrow.

Dryer sponges
Mix 1 bottle of liquid fabric softener with water. I refilled the fabric softener bottle with water 3 times and poured it into the bucket. I have a 5 gallon bucket from Lowe's with a lid to contain it. It fills up about 2/3 of the bucket. You could probably get 2 bottles of fabric softener and be able to fill the 5 gal. bucket with water if you prefer to make it larger and last longer. I got cheap sponges without the scrubbers and cut 3 in half and tossed them into the softener/water mix and stirred it all together. Whenever I place a load of clothes in the dryer, I squeeze the excess out of a sponge and toss it into the dryer with the clothes. After the load is finished drying, I toss the sponge back into the bucket to soak and use another one for the next load. Works pretty well.

Laundry Detergent

1 bar Fels Naptha soap, grated
1 c. A&H Washing Soda (NOT Baking Soda)
1 c. Borax
1 c. Oxiclean (liquid or powder)
Fill with hot water
Optional: 1 Tablespoon Tea Tree Oil or other essential oil (not fragrance oils!)

Step 1: Grate Fels Naptha Bar soap into large pot and cover with hot tap water. Heat to melted liquid, not boiling.

Step 2: Pour melted soap into 5 gal. bucket.

 Add Washing Soda,

Borax,

Oxiclean, and essential oils.

Stir until powders are dissolved and well mixed. Add warm tap water and continue stirring until everything is well mixed.

Cover with lid and let sit overnight.

It should be gelled and gloopy by the next day and ready to use. I plan to reuse the liquid softener container and pour the detergent into it to use on a daily basis.