Homemade Laundry Detergent

As the new year begins, many of us are reexamining our budgets and where we can save money. But not only are we interested in saving money, we are looking for healthier alternatives to the things we currently use. We are 6ish years in on our canning, preserving, and dehydrating journey, about 4 years in on our herbal remedies journey, and a little over a year in on our making food completely from scratch journey.

For us, when Covid shut the world down, we started looking into the important things in life. And, perhaps like some (or many of you) we started to see where the world as we knew it wasn’t as friendly as we thought. We started to question many things, but especially our health and healthcare system. What was being added to our food, our soap, our water, our air, our medications that perhaps wasn’t so good for us? This is where the change started and we’ve been so pleased with the changes we have made.

So, I sat down to think about other areas in our lives, besides food, where we could be more self-sufficient, and in return, healthier! Where do we spend too much money on products that we could potentially make ourselves? What products do we use that could be harmful to us? The lightbulb went on! Laundry Detergent!

Thanks to other like-minded individuals on social media, I found several recipes for homemade laundry detergent and decided to combine them to what made sense to me. While I’m no expert, I’m pretty happy with my concoction. Besides being cheaper (which I will break down below), the ingredients are simpler and healthier compared to the commercial laundry detergent I had been using.

Here is the recipe I used:

1 ½ cups Washing Soda
1 ½ cups Baking Soda
½ cup Epsom Salt
½ Bar of Castile Soap (I used Dr. Natural’s Lavender Scented Soap so I didn’t have to add extra fragrance)

Simply grate the bar of soap into a bowl, add the other ingredients and stir. Then transfer to a container with a lid to keep moisture out.

I have an HE washing machine so I use 1 tbsp of detergent per load. The recipe will make enough for 55 loads when using 1 tbsp per load. Here is the breakdown of cost per 55 load batch:

Washing Soda – $0.67 per batch
Baking Soda – $0.36 per batch
Epsom Salt – $0.13 per batch
Castile Soap – $0.75 per batch

The grand total is $1.91 per 55 loads or $0.03 per load! I was paying $9.48 for a bottle that is supposed to clean 105 loads and let’s be honest, depending on how much you use, you may or may not get that many loads per bottle. I typically do 3 – 4 loads of laundry each week which means to wash my clothes for an entire year will cost me less than what I spent on one bottle of my previous detergent. And, BONUS, it’s healthier! I won’t list all of the ingredients, but one that stood out to me is acrylic acid! No thank you!

When I think back to our ancestors and how they used to “beat their clothes on rocks” to clean them, it makes you realize how ridiculous and complicated our world has become; and honestly, how dangerous! Simplicity is what we are striving for in our lives. Self-sufficiency is our goal. Healthy living is a way of life we will continue to work toward. And with God’s help, we will raise our daughter to appreciate and embrace a way of life long forgotten!

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