Thrifty Thursday: Homemade Laundry Detergent

There are many things that can be made at home to help save money.  One of those things is laundry detergent.  

I found an easy recipe for making some on www.howdoesshe.com, here.  I wanted to see if it really worked and how cost effective it was, here are my conclusions:

Yes, it does make the laundry smell good, no extra fabric softener needed (I did use the Purex crystals-but only half the amount, so it wasn’t overly strong, but still smelled good).  And it is much cheaper than using name brand powder laundry detergents.  Using a store or off brand detergent was comparable to this homemade version depending on the actual brand.  But once you add on buying fabric softener to make your laundry smell good, the homemade version becomes cheaper as it already helps laundry smell good.

Note:  The cost per load in () was calculated by taking the price of the product and dividing it by the advertised load amount on the box. If, using more detergent per load than the box indicates, price will be more per load.  The prices are from Walmart.

Tide 80 loads 17.97 (22 cents)

Gain 80 loads 15.47 (19 cents)

Sun 177 loads for 9.97 (6 cents)

Arm & hammer 185 loads 13.47 (7 cents)

Purex 30 loads 3.32 (11 cents)

Great Value 120 load 11.47 (10 cents)

As far as cost, when using 2 T  (~1 ounce) of the mixture per load, this is what I found:

The cheapest way I found was to buy the oxyclean (11 lbs for 14.98) and the baking soda at Sams (13.5 lbs for 6.68) then dividing it up to the appropriate weights mentioned in the recipe, and then buying the rest of the ingredients at Walmart (Borax for 3.38, A&H washing soda for 3.24, Fels-naptha soap for .97/ea (the stores around me don’t carry the Zote kind), Purex crystals 55 oz for 8.96)

without Purex crystals:  5 cents per load

with 28 oz of Purex crystals 6 cents per load

with 55 oz of Purex crystals 7 cents per load

If you buy all the ingredients at Walmart: (oxyclean--3 lbs for 7.52, baking soda--4 lbs for 2.12)

without Purex crystals:  7 cents per load

with 28 oz of Purex:  8 cents per load

with 55 oz of Purex: 8 cents per load (same as using 28 oz because of rounding)

These amounts are assuming that without Purex crystals this makes around 271 ounces of mixture and with 28 oz:  299 oz of mixture and with 55 oz:  326 oz of mixture (got these amounts simply by adding up the individual components weights).

Now, is 2 T enough for a large or super size load of laundry load?  I think yes, though if you want you could use 2 1/2 or 3 T for super size loads, but it isn’t necessary.  I used a washer that has a super setting and used both 2 and 3 T sizes for super loads, there didn’t seem to be much difference when I used the lower amount compared to the higher amount, both rendered the clothes looking and smelling just as clean as the other or compared to using store bought detergent (off-brand that is) combined with fabric softener.  And if using the small or medium load setting, you would of course decrease the amount of detergent.

The suggestion on howdoesshe to use the empty Purex container is a good one and the lines on the lid are as mentioned perfect for measuring your homemade laundry detergent.  Otherwise, I would suggest buying a 2 T measuring spoon (shown in picture above), they are very handy to have not only for homemade detergent but cooking as well (especially if you use powder eggs--as usually one egg worth of egg powder is 2 T).

Another suggestion, from the comments on that site is to dry out the soap shavings by letting them air dry over a few days, stirring them to make sure all shavings get dried and then pulse them into a powder in the blender before adding them to the mixture--I personally like that idea for mixing it into the rest of the powders better, but haven’t tried it, perhaps next time.