Quick Homemade Laundry Detergent
Wouldn't it be nice if you could spend less on laundry detergent and still get your clothes clean and fresh?
There are all sorts of recipes out there for homemade or diy laundry detergent. The level of simplicity and toxicity you care about, will alter what recipe you use. Additionally, homemade laundry detergent recipes are not all created equal, some will definitely work better than others.
The main reason I started on this journey was because of the amount of laundry that inevitably piled up when having kids entered the picture. Finding a way to save money without spending large amounts of time making my own detergent was a bit of a task. A lot of diy laundry detergents are messy. Most call for Fels-Naptha that you have to shred which is time consuming. Furthermore, I wanted to find a laundry detergent that was effective and that would be less worrisome if a kid got into it. Most of the recipes I found were actually higher on the toxin level than I wanted, so my search continued until I found and adapted the following recipe. I have been using this detergent for over five months now. It is ranch husband approved and continues to impress me.
The thing to know about this recipe is that you don't have to use "Epsom Salt with essential oils". You can simply use plain Epsom Salt and add your own essential oils. I use the essential oil Epsom salt because it simplifies me trying to find a scent that smells nice and that my husband likes. I have found this recipe to work well, but if your expecting it to work like the high powered laundry detergents on your husbands oily jeans, I would lower your expectations. It's not going to take those stains out, but it does clean well. My husband and I wanted to make sure that our laundry actually felt clean and fresh, so it reaches that standard for us. On top of that, it makes our clothes smell and feel nice.
I use it in a front load washer and it does just fine. The gal who I adapted the recipe from uses hers in a top load and says it works great.
My advice to anyone who is unsure about if they want to go the homemade laundry detergent route would be just to try it. If it isn't for you, or if you like the idea but don't like the recipe that is totally fine. Take this recipe and adapt it to your needs or find another one. Their are a ton of recipes out there(speaking from experience). Lastly, maybe the homemade laundry detergent life isn't for you and that's okay too.
Ingredients
1 1/2 Cups baking soda
1 1/2 Cups washing soda
1/4 cup sea salt
1/2 cup essential oil Epsom salts
Directions
Combine all ingredients and stir. (Difficult, I Know)
Sometimes it's pretty strong with the essential oils so I would open a window :)
Directions for use
Use one tablespoon per load. (I use two sometimes if a load is really dirty)
As far as storage, I keep mine in a sealing glass container on a shelf in my bathroom.
Recipe adapted from:
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