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This is the best homemade liquid laundry detergent recipe. This detergent is cheap and works great in he washers. This step by step tutorial will guide you to make your own DIY laundry detergent easy.

Easy Cheap DIY Laundry Detergent You Absolutely Need To Make Today!

So you want to save a guaranteed $10 a month?

For my family it’s $15 a month at least but we use a lot of this stuff!  Simple, homemade, totally worth the effort… drumroll please….. DIY laundry detergent!  Seriously.  For years I’ve been learning how to use less, make more, and go more natural.  From eliminating many store bought beauty products, to creating with essential oils, to making soaps and lotions, to DIY for around the home, to making laundry detergent!   

It does take a little time, (I’ve been doing this for about a year so I timed it this time around for you.  It took fifteen minutes.  And I finished bottling the stuff with a sleeping baby on my shoulder!  So it’s really not too long at all!) but once you’ve got it down it’s really very simple, so cheap, and works way better than store bought.  I mean, maybe you buy the super expensive stuff, and love it and that’s great!  But I don’t have that kind of coin.  I’m used to either Purex, All, or whatever’s available at the dollar store and can vouch this works far better.  Plus it is so easy to give it your favorite scent, make it all natural, or make it for sensitive skin!  You only need three ingredients and a little time. I’ll  wild like that!

SUPPLIES NEEDED:

Washing Soda, Borax, and a bar of soap.  Really that’s it, for gallons of detergent!

Now first thing to note, baking soda is not washing soda.  They have a different chemical composition created by heating baking soda.  I actually make my own which cuts the cost down even more but it does take some extra time.  I’ll post that soon.

Step 1.  Find your favorite bar of soap.  If you’re going all natural, castile soap works great.  As well as homemade soaps or those you can pick up at your local farmers market.  If you want a nice strong smell manly soaps like **Irish Spring deodorant soap** (make sure you read that with a fun Irish accent.) work nice. My favorites are Jergens for sensitive skin to make for baby or my new favorite Lever 2000. Now grate it into a pot.

Step 2. Add water and slowly heat.  Don’t fill the pot more than half way with water unless you are tending to it constantly.  More times than not it’s reached boiling while I’m running after a kid and created a soapy mess all over the stove.  Yes, it was cleaner than it started at the end… but no fun and extra time that really didn’t need to be spent that way.

Step 3. Stir often until all those little pieces are melted away and your pot looks like this.

Step 4. Add 1/2 c. borax and 1/2 c. washing soda and stir until dissolved over medium heat.  This amount makes an enormous batch.  About 2 to 3 gallons.  You’re mixture will now look like this.

Step 5.  I would recommend letting it cool a bit.  To be honest I don’t have the time and it works just fine.  Then funnel into container of choice.  Here’s what I use, two giant purex bottles.  You could also use two washed out milk jugs for a more concentrated batch.

Step 6.  Fill your jugs half full with warm water.  For so long I added cold water and the solution cools too quickly and can clump.

Step 7. Funnel the mixture into the containers.  Now be careful not to spill.  This is suuuuuper concentrated detergent at this point and when spilt is quite an effort to clean up.  It’s slimy and sudsy for a while.

Step 8.  Add warm water to the bottles slowly until almost full.  Your almost complete DIY laundry detergent will bubble up.  You can either let the “head” spill over and keep filling but I prefer to let it go down and add the water in a few stages.  Leave a little airspace in the top of the container and cap it.  Then shake.  After many many times I’ve found it’s very helpful to come back every ten minutes and shake for a bit as the mixture is cooling.  What a workout that is!  But this tip as well as the warm water are really helpful in getting a good consistency.

There you go!  This lasts us about a month or month and a half but we do laundry almost every day and hubby likes to use a lot so it could last you even longer!  About 1/4 cup is all you need for a normal sized load.  If you recycled detergent bottles like we did I like using a full cap for large loads.

Clothes come out smelling lovely, very clean, and there’s no residue.  This is my absolute favorite homemade cleaning supply that saves us a bundle.  Plus it works better than what I was getting at the store.  It’s an absolute win-win and now that I do this as just part of our routine it now only takes about 15 minutes and is well worth the time.

If you liked this way to go more green and save more green definitely head over to check you over 10 uses for baking soda you need to know to save even more! And why not try saving hundreds making DIY wipes? Did you try this out? What is your favorite soap smell to use?  Let me know how it goes in the comment section below!

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