In the past 5 months the amount of laundry I've done has doubled. Thanks to poopy diapers, spit up, drool, cloth diapering sometimes.. ya know, baby stuff. I've said to myself 'oh this outfit Aubrie has on is too cute to put a bib over...' ten minutes later I'm changing her out of it completely because it's soaked in her drool. I love when we're about to head out of the house and right before I put her in the car seat she chucks all over me. I've had to change multiple times because of that. Just this morning, Ian was holding her, giving her a kiss goodbye before he left for work and she spit up on him and he had to change. Ahem.
I decided today that I'm not buying that expensive, over rated, fancy detergent again... Without trying to make my own at least. I looked up some ways to make it and decided to take a shot. I adapted this 'recipe' from a few different ones I've seen...
Ingredients:
4 tbs. of Dawn dish soap
4 tbs. of Borax
3 tbs. of washing soda
7 drops of essential Oil (optional)
4 cups of boiled water
Gallon container
To make the washing soap you need washing soda. Thanks to this post, I saved the money of having to buy washing soda. I let the baking soda 'cook' at 400 degrees until it became more powdered like and not so crystalized. Wa-la, washing soda!
While I was waiting for the water to boil I poured the Dawn, Borax, washing soda and lavender into the milk jug... Then the water.
Once the jug cooled I filled the rest with cold water. Aubrie was fascinated by it so I let her play as it filled. She's such a curious baby, and really enjoys water I love it! After the jug was full I was excited to do a load. It worked great! The fact that I'm excited to do laundry says something... Oh yeah, I used a 1/2 cup of the washing soap for my load and it was a medium size load. I would probably use more if I did an extra large load. This was quick, cheap and easy. Now having done it I will definitely keep making my own. Ha ha take that Tide!
sweeet! I am going to do this some day, I know it would save a lot of money!
ReplyDeleteI've been meaning to do this for some time. I will talk to you about details of how this worked for you tonight, because I have some questions. Awesome work!
ReplyDeleteFun fact...I was wondering how cost effective this is. If you don't buy the essential oil (which is undoubtedly the most expensive part here and like you said not necessary), the cost for all of the items is under $10. The limiting factor in making all of this (with what you have listed) is the baking soda...meaning that's what you will run out of first when making this recipe over and over. Even with that being said, you can make a little over 10.5 gallons of laundry detergent. Which is approximately 336 washes, using a half-cup of the detergent. And to make even more, all you'd need to go do is buy baking soda because you'll still have the other ingredients left over for more washes. You're pretty much sticking it to the man. I love it.
ReplyDeleteSo all this being said...saying making enough for 336 loads is $10, it would be $0.029 per load. When you buy Tide, a gallon would yield approximately 82 loads (they say you use 1/5 cup per load). With the price, it ends up being around $12, which is $0.142 per load. Therefore, a net savings of over $0.11 each load. Actually, to be specific...336 with home made detergent is < $10. 336 with Tide (at price of $12 / gallon) is > $47.