One of the biggest expenses that I have had as a mother was laundry soap. I must admit I love it when my laundry smells great and I used to free pour my detergent into the washer. That was before my I had my third child and went on maternity leave. With three kids (two of which have uniforms at school), a messy husband and myself I do A LOT of laundry. I assume that any clothes on the floor are dirty and they go in the wash and to top it off we decided to cloth diaper our last baby so although that doesn’t necessarily add a lot of laundry it means that laundry must get done in order for baby not to be naked. The first batch of this laundry soap I did I used Epsom salt with some essential oils as a fabric softner and Oxi-Clean. For this batch I changed the ingredients up because I wanted a more potent fragrance and because the Resolve was cheaper than the oxi-clean. I bought all of my ingrediants at either No Frills or Walmart although I know you can find some of them at Dollarama to make the cost even better. I use two tablespoons for regular loads and three tablespoons if I do large loads (always). I have a high efficiency front loader and this works wonderfully in the washer I have.
Items Needed:
1 box of Borax (2 kg)
1 box of Baking Soda (2 kg)
1 box of Washing Soda (3 kg)
3 Bars of Ivory Soap-Shredded
2 Resolve Oxi-Clean In Wash Laundry Stain Remover (4 kg)-or any oxygen powered stain remover
1-2 jugs of Purex Crystals (optional)-You can use Epsom Salt with your favorite Essential Oil)
Instructions
Grate the soap using a kitchen grater
1. I grated the bars of soap on the large grater. I used Ivory because it is very pure but you could use laundry bars found in the laundry isle as well.
2. Put all of the ingredients into a container or bag that is large enough to hold them. I find that the easiest way to mix this is in a large bag (think garbage, recycling or leaf bag. This works out to be a lot of product and it produces a lot of dust if it is stirred so I put it in a bag and just move it around until all of the materials are mixed.
3. I ripped the corner of the bag off and put all of the powder back into a container. This particular one holds 40 cups and it is filled to the top with the finished product.
4. I transferred all of the product into smaller containers so that it would be easier to store and easier to access. The most time consuming aspect of this is actually putting the finished product into the containers. If you keep the stuff in a big Tupperware this job should take you 20 minutes maximum and you don’t have to worry about running out of laundry soap for a long time. My first batch lasted me around 6 months.
I hope that you use this and it helps you save as time and money. I no longer run out of laundry soap when I need it most.
Thank you. I am always on the lookout for laundry recipes. With your HE do you just put our soap in with the clothes or do you use the compartment?
I have a front loader and it has compartments for detergent, bleach and softener. I put it into the detergent compartment. If you end up using the Resolve it comes with a really good scoop that holds 3 tablespoons of detergent which is enough for an extra large load. I hope that you enjoy this as much as I do!
This is excellent – I just bought some Borax and have been looking all over the internet for a good DIY laundry soap – will be trying this out this weekend. Thanks for sharing this!
This is awesome….would this be safe for HE though? Wondering if the real Ivory soap might “gunk” up after time…?
I have been using this formula since October 2013 and I dont see any “gunk”. If you are in the laundry isle you can find laundry soap bars and they could easily be substituted if you are worried. I shred my soap on the large hole on my grater, you could also do it on the small hole to make the soap dissolve faster but I have never had any issues with soap dissolving in my machine.
I have tried using DIY laundry formulas before with no success. I am glad to have come across this one. This is now on my weekendTo do list . Thank you for sharing
Sheila, please try it and let me know. Have a great weekend!
This is brilliant. I use to use the Duggars’ recipe (it was credited to the Duggars on the site I found it on, so not sure if that’s accurate) from the Molly Green website. I loved using it, but I did miss the smell of a nice detergent/fabric softener. Was too scared to put detergent with true essential oils into my HE washer. I eventually stopped using it, because we have hard water at our house, and the whites never come out white. They come out eventually looking dingy. So I thought I’d wait until I saw a recipe for one that keeps the whites white for a longer period of time. I am stocked up for about six months to a year on store bought laundry detergent, so will use that up before I try your recipe. Thanks for sharing it!