DIY Liquid Laundry Detergent {Video Tutorial}

Hey ya’ll! Today Jordan and I wanted to share with you how to make liquid laundry detergent! This stuff is super cheap around $.005 per load. One batch yields about 240 loads so you won’t have to make this very often.  The real question is does it work? Heck yes! I’ve been using this for over a year (don’t ask why it has taken so long to do the tutorial 🙂 and it works great. If there is only two of you in your house you can split the batch with a friend or neighbor! That’s what Jordan and I did. Or you can give it as a gift like I did here.


Ingredients:
1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda
1 bar Fels Naptha soap or other non foamy soap (You can find all the ingredients in laundry aisle)
1 or 2- 5 gallon buckets

Directions:
Put a large pot of water on the stove to boil. Grate soap. Slowly add soap and turn down the heat to medium low. Once melted slowly add in borax and washing soda. Stir until dissolved. Add to the 5 gallon or 2- 5 gallon buckets and then fill it completely up with very warm water stirring half way and when your done filling. Wait a few hours for it to cool down and mix well again. Can take 8 to 24 hours to completely set up.

Use 1/3 cup of laundry detergent per load for big loads. It will not produce a lot of bubbles! You may notice after you have used it for awhile that it will start to get thick chunks, just mix it again with a whisk or stick blender.

Side notes: You can use this in cold water. I only use cold water to wash my clothes (saves energy). I have read other places that say that this can be used in HE washers.

Have you made laundry detergent before? What’s your experience?

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29 Comments

  1. We have been making laundry detergent at home fir several years now. We use homemade soap instead of fels naptha though because it uses a petroleum derived solvent. With young children in the home we just aren’t comfortable using the fels naptha. Homemade detergent is awesome though, gets our diapers nice and clean.

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  2. I have made one recipe that I found on the internet…very similar to your recipe, however I added one container of laundry fragrance booster, Downy I believe. I did this as hubby (big complainer) whined that he missed the fragrance of his fav soap. We don’t have any issues with allergies, so I made this one concession. I also used zote brand soap…for some reason I thought the fels naptha was harsh for some reason. I am very pleased with my homemade soap and love the way it cleans our clothes. We don’t have kids at home so this will last a very very long time! We also have very hard water here in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and this still performs well.

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    1. I have heard of other people using a fragrance booster! I wish I could have super nice smelling clothes but with allergies and other reasons we have almost unscented everything! I’m glad this works so well for you guys too!

    1. Thats almost the exact same recipe I used before I started making the liquid kind! Hope you love it as much as the dry stuff!

    2. Since you wrote this post I’ve made two smaller batches (I didn’t have enough containers to store 5 gallons of it) and I LOVE it! This is now my official laundry detergent recipe! I can’t believe how inexpensive and how well it works.

  6. I use this recipe ALL THE TIME!! 🙂

    I’ve been using it for over 5 years now. Love it. I often add a few drops of tea tree oil because it’s anti bacterial and it smells so awesome! 😀

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    1. It doesn’t really matter! I would say at least 6 cups of water. I also put it in a big pot so it doesn’t boil over as easily.

  10. Okay, so this may be a stupid question, but I’m incredibly new to the whole idea of making your own cleaning products. But if you use a large pot, would this be a large pot that you can use again to cook with? Or would you only want to use it for this from now on?

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    1. I do haha I’m not sure if you are supposed too. I know if you were to make lye soap I could definitely tell you not to. Sorry I can’t be more help. I haven’t heard any different really

  11. Hi! I really like this idea, but I don’t want to use Fels-Naptha. Could I use bar castile soap instead and still get great results? Thanks! 🙂

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  13. I love making my own laundry soap. I did notice the whites were a bit dingy so I added 1 cup of baking soda to the mix. I haven’t seen the dingies since.

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  16. I made this last Jan when you posted it and Im on my last bit of the 5 gallons. All throughout the 5 gallons, I never felt like it got my clothes that clean. 🙁 I used Dr Bronners lavender soap and followed the instructions. I have 2 kids so I think I need something a little…harsher? I was thinking of upping the borax and soda to 2 and 2 for the 5 gallon. Opinions? I dont want it to be too thick but its definitely not doing the best job on dirt here.

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  18. I’ve been using this soap for over a year now and love it.

    One comment to the person using fragrance booster… you may not THINK your fragrance is hurting other people because you probably can’t even smell it anymore. But I (and many other people with MCS) can no longer attend church, go to parties or even house dinners because of perfume and, more than that, fragranced laundry products. If clothes are clean, why must they be perfumed? Anyway, don’t want to be downer, just thought I’d mention it and maybe put in a vote for fragrance free products. More and more people are being negatively affected by fragrance.

    Moderator, feel free to moderate this comment. I know I”m not always tactful. 🙂

    Reply

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