A friend gave me the recipe and at first I was having a hard time finding all the ingredients. I looked on Amazon.com and everything would have come to $20. :( I was about to move on when I decided to check in our local Ace Hardware. I don't know about the Ace Hardware near you, but our Ace always seems to have all the weird, kooky things you can't find anywhere else. So I asked the lady at the counter and she pointed to the end of the aisle where all three ingredients were all standing right next to each other! It only came to $10.37! So here I go ...
Dry Laundry Detergent
1 Bar of soap (Fels Naptha is recommended and that's what I used for my first batch. I've been told Ivory works well too. Next time I plan on trying our family's homemade soap.)
1 Cup Borax
1 Cup Arm and Hammer Washing Soda (NOT baking soda) This was the hardest one to find.
I decided to go with the dry kind because it seemed simpler to make then the liquid, easier to store and I've always preferred powder detergent.
First I chopped the bar of soap into chunks and put it in the food processor. Luckily my mother was about to get rid of a food processor that was finicky, but that worked for me! Then I didn't have to get my regular food processor all soapy.
Then since I'm a little lazy and it seemed simpler I put the borax and the washing soda straight into the food processor.
Then I was done! I threw it in a quart size ziploc bag for now. It looks like a small amount, but it's concentrated so I am told you only need 1 tablespoon per load, 2 tablespoons if it's an extra dirty or big load. I should add that a friend told me she bought $12 worth of supplies the first time and it took her nearly a year to run out of one of the ingredients! $12 for a year's worth of detergent? Heck, yeah!
I'm excited and can't wait to see how it washes our clothes!
Good job! would love to hear how it works!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to steal your recipe. We're starting to get pretty "crunchy" around here too.
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