Homemade Laundry Soap

Did you know you can make your own laundry soap for way cheaper than store-bought? This recipe works great and lasts for months!

I’ve been wanting to make my own laundry soap for almost a year now, but I had quite a few store-bought detergents to use up first. Well I finally ran out and got to make some today! This should last me a long time and it’s way cheaper than store-bought. Here’s the recipe that I used:

 

Homemade Laundry Soap

2 parts grated soap (Fels-Naptha, Zote, or Ivory)

1 part baking soda or washing soda

1 part borax

Mix and store in air tight container.

Use 1-2 tbsp per load.

 

 It was kinda messy and a lot of work to grate the soap. I might try to find soap flakes next time. I’ve finished one load of sheets and they turned out fine. The true test will be Mike’s work clothes. 🙂 Do you make your own detergent? Whats your experience been with it?

 

*Update: I used this recipe for 2+ years and it always seemed to work great! I’m using store-bought detergent now because I was getting random spots on my son’s clothes all of a sudden, but I don’t think it was from my homemade detergent because it continued after I switched to store-bought.

 

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48 Comments

  1. I make my laundry detergent and LOVE IT! I make liquid and add essential oils to it sometimes {lavender}. I have always used Fels-Napth, I've never heard of Zote, do you prefer this over Fels-Naptha?

    Thanks for linking up at Unwasted Homemaking :).

    www.dontwasteyourhomemaking.com
  2. Yes...it's amazing how much money it saves to make homemade! I use a recipe I found on soulemama's blog: http://www.soulemama.com/soulemama/2010/05/on-the-laundry-line.html
    We LOVE it. My husband likes to grate the soap which I'm always happy to let him do :). I've made lavendar and unscented (for baby clothes/blankets). I have citrus, eucalyptus, and peppermint bars waiting their turn to become powder.
    I always feel so good about myself when I scoop homemade laundry detergent into the detergent tray...what is it about the little domestic things? :) Happy laundry washing!
    ~Ashten :)
  3. I have used both zote and fels naptha, and both work fine. zote isn't available where I live, but my brother sent some too me from AZ, actually a whole box (13 bars) so I will be using Zote for years! ha!
  4. hey girl! i make my own too. you can get the fels-naptha at harps by the regular bar soap and body wash. i make the liquid one too. a 2 gallon batch lasts me about a month...so far i've made two batches and then i'll be out of the soap but still plenty of borax and washing soda. i put about $5.50 into this project, so i'm seeing it as VERY effective!!
  5. Hey Bambi. I did a search on google and it seems like the people who've used it on HE washers haven't had any issues, but you might wanna do some more research to make sure. Thanks for stoppin by!
  6. wow, i really want to try this, but am wondering if it is safe for an "HE" high efficiency washer. does anyone know? mine is a kenmore. thank you
  7. hey missy and bamdi--yes harps has the washing soda as well...forgot that walmart didn't! though i did get the borax at walmart.

    my washer is HE and the borax box says that's fine...along with some other sites i've found. i haven't had issues and feel like my stuff is getting clean:-) i am very happy with it! love that i haven't bought laundry dtg in what feels like ages! with 3 little boys i seriously so about 15-20 loads a week. this was seriously worth the effort.
  8. I know this is an old post, but life has kept me too busy to keep up with the blogs I love in my Google Reader, so I am finally catching up this weekend and thought I could give some helpful advice about grating a bar of soap.
    I’ve made laundry soap the way you do for over a year. I love it, but I found grating the soap to be extremely difficult, especially considering I used the smallest holes on the grater so that the soap would be as much like a powder as possible and dissolve the best. Anyway, I tried drying my bars of soap out in the sun last summer by setting them outside in direct sunlight nearly everyday for weeks. While they were a little dryer and therefore easier to grate it still was not a solution to my problem. When I first read about making your own laundry soap this way (which there are about a hundred posts on with a million comments, lol) I recalled someone mentioning drying their bars of soap out by placing them on a cookie sheet in the oven. I thought that might work, but I did not know what temperature to do this at and for how long. I tried googling it and read through some on those many comments on those numerous posts about making your own laundry soap and someone mentioned microwaving. TAH-DAH.
    Cut your bar of soap into 6-8 pieces with a sturdy knife (this is the hardest part). Its more effective to have smaller pieces (than one large bar of soap) because the microwave waves more evenly penetrate. Anyway using a paper plate (because this is a little messy and you don’t want to use anything that you would want to eat off of in the future) place all 6-8 pieces on plate and microwave for 45-60 seconds. Remove plate from microwave. THE SOAP WILL BE HOT! Let the soap cool completely then place all the pieces in a large Ziploc bag, seal the bag, and break the soap pieces into a powder. This should be easy, if you are still ending up with small chunks of soap you need to experiment with microwaving your soap for longer. Repeat with several more bars of soap so that you are stocked up for when you need it (you can pour each bars powder from the large Ziploc into a smaller one for storage and later add it to the correct amounts of borax and washing soda.
    Disclaimer: I use Fels-Naptha Soap. It has what I find to be a mild and pleasant scent. When microwaved it becomes a strong and therefore way too perfumy scent (this will go away) so you may want to do this when husband is not home, open a window to air out kitchen, and you might need to microwave some vinegar in order to remove the smell from your microwave.
    I hope this works for you. Obviously, sorry this is such a long comment but I know how much this has helped me, I think without having discovered the microwave method I would have given up on making my own laundry soap by now.
    Many Blessings,
    Hollie
  9. I found this post by visiting the Frugal Friday Link Up Party. I have never made my own laundry soap. I have a friend that makes it religiously once a month for her family. I think I might give this recipe a try. Thanks for sharing.
  10. We make our own too, but I'm pinning this since my son has eczema and seems to be allergic to the small amount of oxyxlean in ours. If you have a food processor,use that to grate your soap- It takes seconds!
  11. Homemade laundry soap is awesome!. Here is my recipe. Large box baking soda, large box borax, large box washing soda, 3 bars grated fels naptha. A food processor works great on the grated fels and makes it a finer consistency. Mix together and you have a wonderful batch of very economical soap. It cleans my sons very nasty socks (VERY NASTY!) and leaves them smelling clean. I no longer use dryer sheets because my clothes come out soft too!
  12. I love making my own detergent. The only thing I do differently is I add baking soda AND washing soda, and also a tub of Dollar Store knock-off oxyclean. It works really well on super dirty work clothes. My husband and I both come home smelling like jet fuel, so I also throw in a bottle of Purex Crystals when I mix the batch up. It's like an extra $4, but it smells so great. We use pink Zote soap and the lavender crystals mix really well with it
  13. Hi! I have been using this recipe (using Ivory soap) for years now. We love it. I have a son, a daughter and a husband that has a stinky job! :) Sometimes I add essential oils for a great scent. But that's also why we use the Ivory soap, because of the scent. For fabric softner I had read to use vinegar, which I tried but noticed little holes appearing in our clothes. So now for fabric softner I now use a dryer ball (one of the blue knobby ones) that's for fluffing comforters. I use it in every load of laundry and I use a washcloth with a few drops of essential oil on it. We live in the dessert and have not noticed any static cling.
  14. I have been making my own laundry detergent with this exact recipe for quite a few years...It has worked just fine for most of my laundry needs...However my husband is a car mechanic and it didn't seem to get his clothes clean enough...So I added some Tide to the Laundry Soap I have made and it works great on his greasy clothes...It still saves me money to make my own soap...and the Large bottle of Tide lasts forever it seems since I use so little of it as well....Love your page and all of your recipes!! Thanks so much for sharing! God bless!
  15. I decided to go a step further and make my own cold pressed soap to use instead of store bought. I add essential oils of choice, and name the product. An example is when I add lemon and lime I named the laundry detergent LEMON CAKE because that's just what it smells like. I use a food processor to grate the bars of soap and when I have mixed the other ingredients , I then use a blender to make it into complete powdery form. It's crazy how accomplished I feel when I use this detergent!
  16. I have found the home made detergent works great. However, despite all claims, anything oily really hard to get out of clothes. Especially butter. Thanks for the recipe! I am going to have to make more laundry soap soon and I am always losing my recipe!
    1. Thought I would share a solution for your above problem! Write down your laundry soap recipe on an index card and tape it to the top of your container. I taped over it completely to also make it waterproof in case of drips. Works great! Love this soap! Another Linda too
  17. The spots could be your washer. Fill your water with hot water and add bleach or vinegar and baking soda. And go through cycle. I just found you. I like your ideas. Thank you
    1. I was told to leave my washer lid open when not in use as mold and mildew will build up inside the drum and get on your clothes. No more problems.
  18. I have a question... Can you use this homemade detergent in a cold water wash? We don't use hot or warm water to do laundry...
  19. I have used the homemade liquid detergent in the past. It seemed to work good for awhile but I began to notice that my white clothing started looking not so clean, like the oils from our body were not coming out. I think that was happening with our other clothes as well. I spoke to a friend that also used it and had noticed the same thing. So we stopped using. I really liked the savings, just wonder if there was something else we could add to the detergent to take care of this problem? By the way I really have enjoyed reading your blog!
  20. Use your food processor to grate your soap! It works great. After i grate it all I use the blade with some of the baking soda added to break it up finer, but you don't have to do that. Just something I always do. I have been using my own homemade detergent for several years now.
  21. I have been making my own laundry soap for about a year. It saves a bunch of money when works well. I use my ninja to grate the fels-naphtha bars. Done in seconds!
  22. I too have been making my own powdered laundry detergent. Also having the same problem of the spots and stains not bleaching out! I have not been able to figure out the problem so far. The first batch I made worked beautifully, the second and third not so great! I don't know what to do. It worked great on both my son's work clothes.
  23. I just made some laundry soap. Pretty much the same as yours, except I added OxyClean, and some scent pellet things. Mine made about 2-1/2 gallons of soap. It’s in a 5 gallon bucket. I did use Ivory soap, 5 bars, and grated it in my blender.

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