Have you been searching for a gentle, natural way to clean your clothes? I was tired of searching for laundry detergents that didn’t have any chemicals that were harmful to my family’s skin, to my washing machine and to the environment. So I decided to try making my own laundry detergent. There are lots of recipes out there, but I trusted my fellow eco etsy team member and green blogger, Karen to provide the BEST one! And she did, I love it! I hope you will too.
Making your own laundry detergent is economical (about half the price of any non-toxic commercial laundry detergent). It even keeps my front-load washing machine much cleaner than it used to be with the detergent I was using, and it smells great.
• 1 Cup of Borax Natural Laundry Booster
• 1 Cup of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
• One bar of grated Dr. Bronner’s Pure-Castile Bar Soap or Fels Naptha Laundry soap. Castile soap is a little more expensive but it’s vegan and organic; Fels Naptha is not. If you want to use other types of soap, just make sure it’s SOAP and not a CLEANSER like Dove.
• White Distilled Vinegar – 1/2 per load
• Dr. Bonner’s Castile Liquid Soap – 1/2 TBSP
Directions:
Use 1/2 Tbsp each of Borax, Arm & Hammer Washing Soda, grated soap and Castile Liquid Soap for one load of wash.
To make the laundry smell nice, use about 1/2 TBSP. of Dr. Bonner’s Rose Castile liquid soap in the “PreWash” compartment. You may also use 1/2 C of White Vinegar as fabric softener in the “Fabric Softener” compartment. But your machine can be differently configured so you’ll have to decide what to add to which compartment. Also, if you have hard water, you should use more vinegar.
If you are sensitive to Borax, here is a Borax-free homemade laundry detergent!
– Source: ecokaren
I have also been asked to provide a recipe for Dishwasher Detergent, so here you go:
Recipe for Homemade Dishwasher Detergent
– 1 cup Washing soda
– 1 cup Borax
– ½ cup salt
– ½ cup citric acid
Mix together and store tightly covered in a Mason Jar. Use one tablespoon per load. Add vinegar to the rinse dispenser for the best results.
Thanks for sharing the recipe Nikki!
Just wanted to point out that this formula is great for front loading high efficiency (HE) machines because it creates low suds but still great results. And if your front loader is smelling funky, I have a link in the recipe post on how to clean the machine. But using this formula helps.
Thanks again!
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