About a month ago Yahoo posted this story about
laundry detergent . After reading the article I started wondering why I had been putting off making my own detergent.
I knew it would save me money, but I guess I kind of thought that it wouldn't work as well as the stuff I bought pre-made at the store. But this story convinced me that I was simply not thinking straight.
To quote the article:
Is Detergent Even Necessary?
I recently did a TV news story showing people how to make their own laundry detergent for a fraction of the cost of store bought. (It's right here on Yahoo!: check it out.)
As I said in my story, while it may sound impossible, laundry detergent may not even be necessary at all. The blog Funny about Money decided to forgo it completely as part of an experiment. Here's a quote:
"By and large, all of the freshly washed clothing came out with an odor: It smelled of clean water!"
You might be surprised to learn that, while clothing has been around since the fig leaf, laundry detergent is relatively new. And yet, ancient people were presumably able to make their clothing at least somewhat clean. How?
As it turns out, something that may be even more effective than soap is agitation. Ancient people used rocks and rivers, but your modern washing machine can clean lightly soiled clothes by just pushing them around in water.
In other words, people actually do get away without using detergent at all. But if the idea of using nothing more than water to wash your gym socks sounds a little scuzzy, not to worry. You can still wring significant savings from your laundry money by making your own detergent. It's not hard.
Well that kind of said it all for me. I mean it basically says just agitating the laundry was enough to get it clean.
Okay, fine . . .but I like clean smelling clothes . . . ie I like some scent to my clothes to denote they are cleaner, LOL
So when we ran out of laundry detergent this month I bypassed the commercial stuff and started looking for the ingredients from the homemade laundry detergent recipe I have on hand.
The washing soda was a little more difficult to find, and according to some sites most Kroger chain stores (other stores Albertson's, Smith's, A&H, Acme, SavOn, Ace). If you can't find them at your local stores you frequent you can simply call this phone number 1-800-524-1328 and have the UPC code 33200-03020(this is the UPC code for the washing soda). The service will ask for your zip code and then tell you the places in your area that sell the item. (I believe this service will locate most items if you have the UPC code number.)
We luckily found the washing soda at our Kroger's store. We don't normally shop there so it wasn't first on our list of places to check. We will be going there a couple times a year now for this house hold essential.
Also, if all else fails, you can order the Washing Soda from ANY Ace Hardware store, via their online service and they will ship it to your local store for free. Here's their LINK.
Everything else, ingredient wise, I got at Wal-Mart. I bought our 5 gallon buckets at Lowe's for about $3.50 each. We got two, one for the detergent and one for the fabric softener. I also got used spoons, measuring devices, cheese grater, and a pot at garage sales and thrift stores. My total start up costs came to $32. This includes all ingredients, buckets, & utensils.
I won't have to buy new ingredients until sometime in the fall I think. I am guesstimating things for now until I know for sure. I don't forsee needing to make more fabric softener ANY time soon, and I am guesstimating that I'll need to make laundry detergent at least once a month and my ingredients SHOULD last at least 6 months.
Here is my break down of the cost:
Wal-mart:
OxyClean $4 (used for powdered detergent)
Borax $3
8pk Bar Soap $3 (I used Dial's Spring scented soap. Love it!)
Liquid Fab Softener $8
3pk Sponges $2
Kroger:
Washing Soda $3
Lowe's:
2- 5gal buckets with lids $6
Thrift Store:
Used Pot
Used Cheese Grater
Used Stirring Spoon
Used Measuring cups
**Thrift Total: $3
Total Start up cost: $32
Total cost for 6mo worth of Liquid Laundry Detergent: $13
Total cost for 4mo worth of Powdered Laundry Detergent: $20 (will be using more liquid than powdered though)
Total Cost for 6mo worth of Fabric Softener: $8
Normally we have been buying laundry detergent 1-2 times a month at about $8-$12 a bottle/box. This does NOT include costs for a Bounce Bar, dryer sheets, or fabric softener; depending on what hit our fancy that month. Those costs ranged anywhere from $2 - $8 a month.
So now our "monthly" costs will be about $2 a month for detergent and $1 a month for fabric softener.
**********So, we made the detergent this past weekend. I grated the soap and we started "cooking" the water and soap and I knew it had to melt all of the soap shavings. I filled the bucket up half way with the hot water and then dumped the liquid soap in and started stirring. We then added the powdered ingredients and stirred more.
It was at this point I started questioning if this was actually going to work or not, LOL
So we added the rest of the water and gave it a few more final stirs, snapped the lid on and took it to the basement.
It was still ALL liquidy and I knew it was supposed to gel, but my doubts crept in on whether or not I did it right, used the right soap, or perhaps not enough of the bar soap.
Thankfully 24+ hours later we checked on the soap and much to my happiness, the soap did what it was supposed to do!! WooHoo! It gelled! It smells great, based on the soap I chose to use too.
The day before we had gotten the buckets I decided to try the powdered soap. With the extra boost from the OxyClean I think we'll reserve that for more soiled clothes and just use the liquid soap for normal laundry.
All in all, we are very pleased with how cheap, easy, clean, simple, and great this stuff works. I doubt I'll go back to buying laundry detergent again. How can I?!
