We recently made our first batch of homemade laundry detergent. The cleaning results have been great so we wanted to share our experience and, of course, the recipe we used.
There are a number of good reasons to make your own laundry detergent. Here are some of them:
1. SAVE MONEY! After scouring the internet for numbers, I learned that the average American household will spend somewhere between $200 and $300 per year on laundry detergent. Most commercial detergents average out to around .50 cents per load. Of course, each family's cost depends on the number of people in the household and whether the detergent is name brand or generic. Homemade detergent is just as effective as the store purchased soap and boasts a frugal price of 1 cent to 2 cents per load. That's a pretty big savings!
2. NO FILLERS/FEWER CHEMICALS
Many of the commercial detergents contain lots of water as filler. If you look at the first ingredient on most bottles, it is water. Basically, you're being ripped off. Many commercial brands also contain unnecessary chemicals and stabilizers to maintain the consistency of the detergent. The homemade version is kind of unsightly (it's really gloppy and gelatinous) but it works just fine. There is also a component known as the "builder" in most laundry detergents. This component removes hard water and changes the alkalinity of the water. Most of these builders are toxic to the environment. The borax in the homemade recipe functions as a builder and does not contain the same environmental hazards. I could get into the chemical side more but for the sake of time, I'll sum it up by saying that the DIY laundry soap is better for the environment.
3. FRAGRANCE/DYE
Coloring agents in laundry soap are completely useless. While the the deep blue in Tide or similar brands may invoke feelings of clean ocean water and natural springs, it's all a facade. The blue dye is bad for the environment and can cause rashes or other reactions in individuals with sensitive skin. The DIY detergent is free of harsh dyes. As an allergy sufferer, I'm a fan of unscented laundry detergent so I was pleased to find out that the DIY soap has little to no smell (depending on what type of bar soap you grate into the recipe). Sure, that "just out of the dryer" fresh smell can be nice once in awhile but for 5 months out of the year, it makes me miserable. With the DIY soap, the clothes come out smelling like cloth. They do not have the phony smell of a spring meadow or an ocean breeze. And that's how I like it! Plus, you can add essential oils to add fragrance to your homemade detergent if you like that kind of thing.
4. SAVE TIME AND ENERGY
Now that I have a five gallon pail of laundry detergent waiting for me in my laundry room, I know I won't have to lug a big bottle home from the grocery store with each trip. Between the jugs of milk, the giant packs of diapers, the food and the kid, it's nice to have one less thing to carry out of the store each week. Making our own detergent took us an investment of only one hour and we will probably have laundry detergent for the next 6 months.
I was skeptical of making our own detergent at first, but I kept reading great articles on the internet. I even watched a few great tutorials on YouTube. I have to admit that I felt a bit 'Little House on the Prairie" when we were grating the bar of soap and melting it on our stove, but I've since gotten over this feeling. If it works and it saves money, I want in on it! I researched a lot of recipes before deciding to use the one used by the Duggar family. It was very similar to most of the recipes out there but I figured it must work if they've been using it for so long for so many people! And it DOES work. I even have a few shirts that always seemed to smell, even when they came right out of the dryer. You know the ones... They are usually part Lycra and part some-other-man-made-material and the B.O. smell seems to get sucked into the clothing fibers and trapped forever. Well, the DIY detergent worked on these shirts! The DIY detergent also passed the stinky gym clothes test and, the most telling of all tests, the underwear test. I'm a believer.
My only concern right now might be color fading. The jury is still out on this because we haven't been using the detergent long enough. If you can get over the funny color (It's kind of amusing that a natural beige color looks 'funny' to me after decades of using fake blue detergent!) and the strange consistency and take note of the actual cleanliness of the clothing, then I think you'll be a believer too. At this point, I'd recommend this detergent recipe to everyone! Here is the link to the recipe we used:
DUGGAR LAUNDRY SOAP RECIPE
No comments:
Post a Comment