Our Homemade Liquid Laundry Detergent

I have been making my own detergent for many months now and I can’t see myself ever going back to store-bought.  I use the powdered more often than the liquid simply because it the powdered is easier to make and takes up less space.  However, my grandmother loves this liquid detergent, as does my hubby.

This is not an exact science and you can change things up by adding or subtracting ingredients as you see fit.

Last night, I made some for my grandmother and enough to top up my own jug.  In total, it was about 4 1/2 – 5 litres.

Ingredients:

5 Litres of water
1/2 Cup of Borax
1/2 Cup of Super Washing Soda
1/2 Bar of pure soap such as Fels-Naptha, Dr. Bronner’s, Ivory, Sunlight, etc. (I used Ivory as I have quite a few bars on hand and would like to use them all up)
10-15 drops of essential oil (This is optional but I used Lemon 5-fold as I really like the fresh scent of it!)

Directions:
1. Grate 1/2 of the bar of soap

2. Heat 3 litres of water over high heat in a large pan, add grated soap.

3.  Stir until soap is dissolved and stir in Borax and Washing Soda until dissolved.

4.  Pour mixture into a large bucket or pail and add 2 litres of water.  Stir.

5.  Let cool.

Upon cooling, the soap will gel up.  During the cooling process, I like to give it a good stir/whisking every hour or so to help the heat escape and to keep the clumping to a minimum.  It is normal for the soap to be chunky but I find the more I mix it up, or shake the jug, the smoother it becomes.

I then pour it into jugs that I have saved and use 1/2 a cup for regular loads and 1 cup for heavy or soiled loads.