Adventures in Homemade Detergent-Making

"Josh I'm making our laundry detergent!" - Mollie
"With cheese?" - Josh

This was the response I got last night when Josh walked in the door and noticed the Fels-Naptha I was grating looked like I was adding cheese to my new Pinterest-recipe-detergent (in his defense, I'd never seen/touched/smelled Fels-Naptha until last night when I cracked open the packaging...and I was also shocked at it's cheese-like resemblance). So immediately he was skeptical. He was even more skeptical after I told him each load will only take 1-2 tablespoons. "And you're sure it's actually going to get the clothes clean?"

Well no. But the 10 ladies on Pinterest plus the blog I religiously read all said it does. And they said it will last for an entire year.

Then again, those ladies don't do laundry for the Boersma Enterprises CEO...and his. laundry. is. nasty. It gets pretty real at our house in the summertime.

Perhaps in the summer I'll need to throw in a few extra tablespoons. I'm still in the experimenting stages...so obviously I'm qualified to write a blog about making homemade detergent.

After some research, I decided that spending $20 for a big tub of Gain is BOGUS. We do a surprising amount of laundry at our house for it being just us. We have a lot of visitors who spend the night in our guest room, so I wash more bedding and towels than I imagine the average childless couple does. That being said...we're not exactly 'childless.' College kid's bring their laundry over, and about half of them remember to supply their own detergent 100% of the time. Add my sister (our favorite college student/roommate/visitor) with her laundry, and our summer beach towels, and there are seasons where we burn through a tub of Gain at an alarming rate.

I haven't been great at tracking this, but if I had to guess I'd say I buy laundry detergent, on average, about every 1.5 months...so buying detergent eight times per year, means we spend $160 per year on detergent.

I could have gone a slightly cheaper route with this homemade detergent, but I took what I liked from all the recipes I found, and combined it into one, BIG recipe that smells amazing. The laundry scent was most important for me because I don't appreciate fresh, clean, towels...if they don't smell like fresh, clean towels. This whole endeavor wasn't about being gluten-free or saving the earth or using fewer chemicals in our house...it was purely about saving us some cash-money. And if I'm going spend time researching, shopping, and making detergent...darnit, I want it to smell good too.

I'm not a Wal-Mart shopper, but yesterday, in the name of saving a little extra money, I was.

Downy Unstopables (2): $6.97/ea
Borax (1): $3.97
Fels-Naptha (2): .97/ea
Arm and Hammer Baking Soda (1): $2.24
Arm and Hammer Washing Soda (1): $3.24
Oxiclean: $9.24
Dove Bar Soap: $3.10
Big Jar: $9.97
***FYI, the exact same jar costs $16.97 at Target...this jar is literally the only reason I ever set foot in Wal-Mart, and it was the only reason I chose buying my supplies at Wal-Mart yesterday vs. my one true love, Target...and then do you want to know what happened...THEY WERE OUT OF STOCK...classic. Lucky for me, I had one of these  jars at home filled with pinecones so I just ended up using that instead...I'm still annoyed about it, can you tell?***

TOTAL COST: $48 (I won't have to buy the big jar for future batches, making the actual cost $38)

After I had gathered my supplies, it was time to crank dat Katy Perry and start dumping everything together. Some sites recommended mixing in a 5-gallon bucket, but it was cold last night and rummaging around in the garage did not sound appealing...so I decided big mixing bowls would do the trick. I used two mixing bowls, eye-balled dumping 'half' of everything into each one, and stirred the power together with a wooden spoon.

I grated two bars of the Fels-Naptha (I kept the third one on hand for stain removal), and one bar of the Dove soap over a piece of tin foil, then dumped that in the bowls too. The dumping process took about 45 minutes, just enough time for me to get it all mixed up before we needed to leave for Connection Group!

A couple of things to note...Downy Unstopables pellets and Dove bar soap are optional. They added about $17 to the cost, and if I'm being honest, I could have done without them. While I was shopping I got worried that our laundry was going to smell all weird, so I grabbed some extra stuff for good measure. In the future when I make this recipe, I'll probably just throw in one bottle of the pink Downy pellets and call it good.

The amount of Oxiclean I used is also up for debate...some recipes suggested using a small tub of Oxi, and some suggested using a big tub...I went for the medium-sized tub and figured it couldn't hurt if it makes a slightly bigger batch and lasts a teeny bit longer.

If I could, I'd choose to mix this up outside on the deck because my counters and stove and everything got pretty dusty. Josh legitimately scolded me for accidentally inhaling some of the dust which resulted in a coughing fit...but it was negative 20 and homemade detergent is  ON THE LIST FOR FEBRUARY! Seriously though, I wanted to get started on this project since it's still early enough in the year to gauge how it will affect our budget in 2014.

Even after I over-did it on the 'extra' smell-good stuff, we're still saving $122/year on detergent. Over the next five years we'll potentially save $610 (more if I cool it on the Downy)...And we can do a LOT with that much extra coin.

Plus, how pretty does this jar look sitting on my dryer?!

Happy detergent-making! :)

MmB