Katy Abram

Yes, I actually do have a conservative domestic diva side.  Today I tweeted out that I was making a batch of homemade laundry detergent, which during my last calculation saved my family about $500 per year. I'm sure now with the increased cost of everything I buy in the grocery store I'm sure this savings amount has increased.

You asked for it!  Here is the recipe a friend gave me.  Our clothes are softer, smell wonderfully and no one has any skin reactions (which in my family is typical with some detergents).

Ingredients:
    1/3 bar Fels Naptha Soap
    1/2 cup Arm and Hammer Washing Sode (yellow box)
    1/2 cup Borax Powder (white box)
    32 cups warm water
    2 cap fulls of Tide or your favorite liquid laundry detergent

First use a cheese grater (smallest grate on the grater) to grate the Fels Naptha Soap into a fine powder.  Heat 6 cups water in a saucepan (do not boil).  Add the Fels Naptha Soap and stir until the soap is melted.

Add washing soda and Borax to the sauce pan.  Stir until dissolved.

Put 26 cups of warm water in a bucket (I use a 5 gallon bucket I bought at the hardware store.)  Add the soap mixture and stir.  Add 2 caps of liquid laundry detergent.  Stir.  Then transfer to old laundry containers for storage and use.

Note:  I typically will double the recipe and will use a funnel to pour the laundry detergent into containers.  I store it in a few large plastic ice cream containers (they stack on top of eachother) or in old laudry detergent containers.  Once I empty my laundry container I refill it with what I have in the ice cream containers for easy dispensing.