But who can endure the day of His coming?
And who can stand when He appears?
For He is like a refiner’s fire
And like launderers’ soap.
Malachi 3:2
When I first read about making homemade laundry soap, I was excited but skeptical. Would it save me any money? (Yes!). Would it take a lot of time? (About 15 minutes per batch). Would our clothes look clean and smell good? (Yes!) Would it cause problems for our washing machine? (No).
So, when we decided to do it, we took pictures of all the steps along the way so you can see how easy it is and what things should look like along the way.
We purchased three ingredients at a total cost of under $11.00. This will make 8 batches of liquid laundry soap.
Soap (You need one bar per batch). We chose Ivory. If you use Fels Naptha, you will use less, about 1/3 of a bar.
Arm and Hammer Washing Soda (Available in the laundry area)
20 Mule Team Borax (Available in the laundry area)
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| Step One: Shred, chop or shave your soap into small pieces. |
| Step Two: Measure and start heating water. You will need 6 cups of water heated to melt the soap in a sauce pan. Add the soap and water to the pan. |
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| Step Three: Once the soap is all dissolved, you stir in half a cup of Borax and half a cup of Arm and Hammer Washing Soda. Stir over the heat until it is all dissolved. |
| Step Four: Remove from heat and pour into a large bucket. I used a five gallon bucket, but a smaller bucket would have been just fine. |
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| Step Five: Add four cups more of hot water to the bucket and stir until well blended. |
| Step Six: Add one gallon plus six cups of cold water to the mixture. Mix well. Let sit for 24 hours. |
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| Store it in your old laundry soap bottle or other plastic container for easy pouring. |
| Ready to use! I used 1/4 of a cup because I have a high efficiency machine. Most would probably use half a cup. It looks like a liquid gel. |
| Questions |
| What about scent? If you want a scent other than the soap smell, you can add 1/2 – 1 oz of essential oils. I have not tried that yet because I have a daughter with Asthma, and I wanted to try a batch with no scent first. |
| There are no suds. Is it cleaning? This has low suds, so if you open the washer and look you will not see a lot of suds. |
| Does it clean and deodorize well? Our laundry smells good and clean. The results are very good. So far we have not been unhappy with any loads. |
| How much are you saving? Based on us using liquid Tide from Sam’s Club, I estimate that I spent 8 cents per load (I use half as much as the bottle recommends). Using my homemade soap I will spend half a cent per load. It takes less than 15 minutes to make. |
| Will I still need dryer sheets or fabric softener? I still use dryer sheets. |
| Where did you learn to make your own laundry soap? I saw several sets of directions on different websites and looked around for the most commonly used ingredients and instructions. Once I decided to try it, I took pictures along the way to share for people just learning like me. |
Hi Malia and family,
We moved out to the country almost 2 year ago and having been working to become self sufficient. We have homeschooled for 5 years and have a garden each year. This year we will be starting a small orchard … We will be getting chickens this year also. Your website has been such a blessing … and I especially love the recipe for laundry detergent. We made some and have loved it. I have passed your recipe along to friends to share this wealth of information. Thank you for this ministry you are doing to help keep our life simple.
AWESOME! This is so cool. I used lavender essential oil in mine and it smells like summer! Grace (my 5yo) helped me make it (the older boys got in on it, too). I’ve sent kits to my nieces and nephews to make their own batch. They’ll be so excited to receive them!
My friend Lisa (www.HomesteadOriginals.com) does this also – I’ve yet to try it though as I prefer to use dry detergent (powder). So I just use Arm & Hammer’s powder detergent for now. I wonder if there’s any difference between that and just combining the Borax and Arm & Hammer powder above?
Good question. I have not personally used the dry version of this recipe. I have read many good reviews about it. If you want to try it dry here are the directions I have found out on the internet. I think this recipe comes from thriftyfun.com It is very similar to many others I have seen. I have always used liquid detergent due to sensitive skin issues in our family. If you try the powder, let me know how you like it!
The recipe for the laundry soap is as follows.
* 1 c. shredded or grated bar soap. (Use the food processor to shred the little soap bars from motels, or buy soap at dollar store.
* 1/2 c. Arm and Hammer Washing Powders
* 1/2 c. borax
Use only 1 tablespoon.
Malia,
A question about the recipe for liquid soap – how much is 1 batch? You directed to use 1/2 c. per load with a regular load washer. I was wondering how many loads I could wash per batch. I am already using a fairly inexpensive soap (Era), but believe I can do better with the homemade.
Love your site. Rhonda
Thanks for stopping by my site, Rhonda. It makes around two gallons. Let me know what you think about the price compare to Era. I only compared it to the brand I was currently using.
Malia,
I just wanted to thank you for your detail account of making the laundry soap. My mother-in-law and I tried it, and it worked great. That was a brilliant suggestion to shave all the soap, while you have it all out. Thanks for sharing!
Julie:
Thank you for stopping by to let me know of your success! I know it will save you money. I sure appreciated walking past the laundry detergent aisle at the grocery store yesterday! Have you tried adding essential oils for scent, or did you just use the soap smell? We have not tried adding any scent yet.
God bless,
Malia
I just made a powdered laundry soap. works great…..
1 bar of soap ( I used Colgate laundry soap) grated fine
2 cups A&H washing powder
2 cups Borax
mix and keep in a sealed container best thing is you only use 1-2 tablespoons per wash load!
Janet: Terrific! Thank you for sharing. Are you using any fabric softeners or dryer sheets?
Thank you for stopping by my site today.
Malia
Thanks for this great info. I’ve been using borax and baking soda (about 1/2 cup each because I have really hard water) and instead of using fabric softener, I use plain vinegar during the rinse cycle. My washer has a place to put in fabric softener at the beginning so I don’t have to remember to go back and add it during the rinse. It has worked great!
Hi:
One of the questions in this newsletter asked what to store your soap in after making it. I use 5 quart ice cream buckets. We had quite a few and they have covers that fit well.
I love the soap. It smells so good and fresh. Will make it from now on.
Carol Leighton
Hey Malia! I REALLY want to make the laundry detergent, but I don’t have a food processor. Any suggestions? I guess I could borrow one from somebody if needed. Also, I had a recipe for making dishwasher (machine) detergent (1 part baking soda, 1 part borax), but it left a horrible residue on my dishes. It got so bad that I would have to rinse the dishes after taking them out of the dishwasher. I went back to buying Seventh Generation. Do you have another recipe that may work better? Thanks! Erin Zinser
Hey Erin:
Thanks for stopping by my site today! You can use a hand cheese grater. You can also just use a butcher knife and slice it thinly. It is just to help facilitate the melting process. I suppose you could even leave it whole and melt it in the water that way, but it would be time intensive.
I agree about the dishwashing detergent. We tried one that was part borak and part arm and hammer washing powders and did not like the residue. I need to research that further. If I come up with something, I will let you know.
Blessings,
Malia
I haven’t found Arm & Hammer Washing Powders, only Arm & Hammer Washing Soda. Here in the Minneapolis area, I’ve checked at Rainbow Foods (Roundys is the store brand), Cub Foods and Sam’s Club (haven’t been to Walmart yet). Is it the same thing? Would using plain baking soda work? There were other “laundry helps” on the same shelves as the A&H Washing Soda and 20 Mule Team Borax–none of which I had never noticed before! If the washing soda is not the same, is there another product that is similar? I’ve never heard of Fels Naptha before;I haven’t found it either. Thanks for help!
Thanks for the question. Arm and Hammer Washing Soda is correct. Baking Soda is not the same thing. Thank you for asking that. I am sure others will have that same question! Let me know when you try it and your results!
Malia
F.Y.I.: One of my readers just emailed to tell me she tried Zest soap and it did not melt properly, so she is back to using Ivory. Thanks, Kim!
I was wondering, is this recipe safe for the environment and our children if they accidentally gotten some on their skin etc…. I just want to make sure that it would be safe. I have a six year old aspergers child that unfortunately likes to experiment with things and it is worry of mine.
Good morning Malia,
Since I learned to make my laundry soap from you I thought I would share.
To make cheap and effective dishwasher soap I mix borax (to shelf in laundry isle) with baking soda. It also is not harmful to you or your children as dishwasher soap is.
Have a great day!
Cyndi
I actually just priced MANY household items such as laundry detergent and broke the prices down to each load or each roll of toilet paper, etc. It seems to actually be cheaper to buy ‘Wind Fresh’ powdered laundry detergent from Sam’s. It comes out to only .06/load vs. your .08/load for homemade det. It smells great and appears to be quite hypoallergenic. My middle son is very sensitive to…Everything, and he’s done fine with this detergent. However, if you live in the country or do not have access to a Sam’s Club, the homemade detergent will be the cheapest by a long shot! Thanks for the help! Keep up the great work.
Hi Audrey, thanks for stopping by. It actually cost 1/2 cent per load. The 8 cents was for when I used Tide from Sam’s Club and only used half as much as recommended. I am glad to hear about your find, though. Not everyone will be interested in making her own soap, so that may help other budget conscience moms.
Have a blessed day!
Malia
Malia,
What do ou use for a spot remover? OR do you not use a Shout, Biz or Oxyclean type of product in addition to your laundry soap?
Thanks,
Bonnie
Good question. Has anyone had reactions to using the homemade soap with Shout or Spray’n Wash?
Thanks.
Hi Sherri:
I use the shout stick as a stain remover. No problems with it. I have also heard of folks keeping a bar of old fashioned fels naptha in their laundry room, and dipping it in water and scrubbing it on a stain as a stain remover. That is much cheaper if you can find it.
Can not find A&H Washing Powder. I did see A&H Washing Soda, is that the same thing?
Yes, A & H Washing soda is the same thing.
Malia
Love making homemade soap, but never added any scents – child and husband with asthma. The first time, I thought I made it wrong because I didn’t know how low sudzing was LOW – almost nil. I used double the amount (1 c) until I did more research. 1/4 – 1/2 c is all I use now, and it works great on my husbands work clothes and my son’s sneakers. As for spots – my grandmother always had fels naptha near her laundry tub as well as a small container of Dawn. Dawn will take out the greasey spots while the fels naptha takes out just about everything else. She also had kosher salt which you can add to the fels naptha for tougher stains like blood or sweat. Just make sure the fabric can handle a little elbow grease.
Malia, I made this up using your recipe and Ivory soap scraps (to make I cup of soap powder) last month (we couldn’t find washing soda in our local stores and to just give it a try we decided that baking soda would probably provide sufficient water softening, so we substituted that too). Rather than making it into a liquid as you do, I just mixed all the powdered ingredients and left it as a powdered laundry soap. We use 1 Tablespoon for light loads and 2 Tablespoons for heavily soiled loads. It is much easier to store the powder than the liquid since it takes up so much less room. It dissolves well and we don’t wash in hot water either.
For a stain remover, just using a bar of Ivory soap rubbed into the dampened stain with a little gentle scrubbing works very well.
Have you ever made the dryer sheets? They are much cheaper and work well. I used to do them all the time but I’ve gotten out of the habit lately a bunch of store bought dryer sheets given to me about a year ago and I’ve not used them up yet. If you’re interested drop me a note and I’ll look it up for you.
Gina
Malia, I just came from Walmart-having a hard time findng Arm&Hammer Washing powders. They have A/H Soda Deoderizor and also A/H laundry detergent..are either one of these ok to use? I’m eager to try the dry laundry detergent. I love your website, you have your own icon on my computer…thank you, joanie
We “make” our own fabric softener like this: Take about 1/4-1/2 cup liquid snuggle and put it in the bottom of an empty 16 ounce bottle. Fill the bottle almost to the top with water and shake gently. We have a small plastic tub (about the size of a 24 ounce sour cream container) on our dryer. I bought a bag of cheap kitchen sponges at the dollar store. I cut the sponges in half and rinsed them well. Then I put those in the plastic tub. When I do laundry (all day Friday) I wet all the sponges in the morning and squeeze them out, then put the tub back on the dryer. As I dry each load of clothes I turn the bottle upside down with the sponge on top three or four times (probably the equivalent of 1/2 T. liquid) and toss it in the dryer with the clothes. When I’m all done with my laundry, I just round up the sponges and put them back in the tub until the next time. My clothes don’t smell like fabric softener, but the static cling is reduced, and that’s all I really care about. We’ve been doing this for 10 years, and it works great. (I’ve only bought two bottles of Snuggle in all that time, so it’s pretty cheap, too.)
Thanks for all the good info you are providing us! – Jenna
I read where someone said that Zest didn’t melt well. I just made a batch of homemade laundry detergent and we used Zest, Ocean Breeze scent. It melted perfectly fine. I grate my bar soap with a cheese grater and it takes me all of a few minutes. I use 1 cup of Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda (from Kroger’s.. local SuperWalmarts didn’t have it), about 3/4 cup Borax, 1 cup Arm and Hammer Baking Soda, added for softening and fresh scent. My clothes are clean and very fresh smelling. We have red dirt/clay where I live and it eventually gets onto everything at some point and time and I find that I do have to use an added cleaner to help get this out, like bleach or dry bleach, etc… but for everything else so far so good. It gets everything clean.
oh, awesome, am gonna try this, I make my own homemade goat milk soap and that stuff is amazing. I works better than bleach on lots of stuff. It’s excellent at getting blood out, and after cleaning up cat pee, the cat won’t pee there again. So am excited to try the GMS in this recipe. Has anyone else used homemade soap in this concoction?
Thank you,
Doris
Borax should not be used with every wash since it fades clothes. It is great for cloth diaper loads, though. This works: Grate 1 cup shredded Naptha or castile soap. Add 1/2 cup washing soda. Mix in 1/2 up oxyclean or all fabric bleach. That will give you a very good dry detergent that will help stretch the life of your garments as well as keep them clean. You can make the liquid detergent with borax for light coloer loads and white loads. You can also use it for making yor own “Spray and Wash” which is actually VERY good. Mix 1/2 cup of the liquid home made detergent with 1/2 cup ammonia, 1/2 cup white vinegar, and 1/2 cup water. keep that in a spray bottle and use it for tough stains. You just want to wash the clothes right away. You won’t want that spray sitting on your clothes. I love to wet a bar of naptha soap and rub it right on stains, but the spray stuff really does work. Oh, I also prefer to get blood out (have sons with terrible nose bleed issues) with hydrogen peroxide. I have not had problems with fabric dyes bleeding out, but you should test it on a small hidden area of the fabric first.
For extra information: washing soda has a much higher ph (something like ph 11) than baking soda. You can bake baking soda in the oven to ger the ph level up and turn it into washing soda. I also thought folks might want to know that naptha soap rubbed right onto exposed skin will remove posion ivy oil. It will even remove the oil after it has adhered to the skin. I keep a bar of Fels naptha soap in my 1st aid kits in the van and in my home. Those who have skin sensitivity should try using castile instead of naptha for the laundry, but I thought I would mention an added benefit to having naptha soap around.
I have not noticed any fading on our clothes. The information about Fels Naptha is very interesting. I have had a hard time finding it locally, though I do look from time to time.
http://tipnut.com/frugral-fabric-softener-recipes-dryer-sheet-tips/
Here is a great recipe for homemade fabric softener and homemade dryer sheets!
Thanks
Jennifer
I wanted this to work for me so badly, but I guess there is too much chlorine in my city water. Store-bought detergents have ingredients to counteract this. I wish I knew what those ingredients were! After two weeks, all of our clothes were looking very dingy and faded. I also had several outfits that ended up in the trash because of stains. I had never needed to pretreat stains before with my Tide detergent.
I guess I’m stuck with Tide until we can move out to the country wtih well water and can try again.
We used to use just vinegar for an extra rinse and the clothes came out nice and soft, but since we have very hard water my husband found that 1 tsp. of Cascade dishwashing detergent works to soften the water. That is a whole lot cheaper than the liquid water softener you can buy or even Raindrops.
Carola
Malia,
I am sorry if this is similar to what someone else said, I did not have time to read all the replies, forgive me, I will be back in a bit to read them though. I use a similar recipe to make my liquid detergent, but make more, in fact the recipe I use makes 10 gallons, but I don’t do the second diluting and just use half as much as reccomended, I ran out of containers.
For fabric softener, I just use vinegar. You use about 1/4 cup and you can add essential oil (aprox 20 drops per gal) if you want. I still use dryer sheets for static though, but am planning on making my own. The recipe I plan to use is from the Duggars (same source as the laundry detergent). Use regular fabric softener, mix half softener half water, cut a sponge in 4 pieces, place in a container and when drying clothes add one piece of sponge (wrung out) to load. Have a blessed day, and I will be back in a bit to read all of everyones comments, I am always looking for good ideas, like how to harvest the lavendar I just bought to plant for soaps and fragrance……
Can you wash in cold water with this homemade detergent?
Also, does anyone have a recipe for shampoo or dishsoap? The ones I’ve seen so far on the internet look like “real” soap-making, which I’m not sure I have time for now.
i think i found your website through homeschoolfreebie and was looking forward to trying your home made laundry soap but then we had to purchase new washer. we got one of those new frontloaders that require HE (high efficiency)detergents. as it turns out, HE means low suds! so i still think that i want to try your home made soap. my question is- has anyone else tried this concoction with a front loading HE machine? if i have to be the pioneer, i will but i am hoping someone else can confirm if this is okay to use since my machine is brand new.
Yes, you can safely use it in your HE machine. Use 1/4 cup per load.
malia! my bad — i just went over your destructions and whoops! there it was – you have an HE machine yourself! reading comprehension…yeah…
wow! omigosh! wow! have been using powdered version for a good month because with a husband and 2 sons, i really need to use pre soak cycle on new front loader. with front loaders ( at least mine) if you put liquid in detergent compartment, it will drip immediately into drum and will be lost in pre wash cycle. if i use powder, it will stay there until appropriate time.
so i bought Target’s cheapest ($20) food processor – the cheaper one’s don’t seem to have grating function anymore- because there is no way i am spending time hand grating soap which is necessary for powder form. there are other forms of exercise i enjoy better and i don’t think my kids will go for it either. also, again because of menfolk, i chose to try fels naptha soap over ivory – with reservations because my dh has skin sensitivities and my ds10 is allergic to everything – but it has worked out well so far.
fortunately for me, we have Pathmark chain grocery which has fels/borax/washing soda all together!
i grated and mixed together and stored in empty Carnation Instant Breakfast (slightly more than 1 lb) container along with 1 tablespoon size measuring spoon.
and let me tell you something – previously our clothes were not clean. we were stuck with our old machine until tax time which wouldn’t agitate anymore and was dumping more and more water on basement floor. between our new front loader and 1 tblspoon of this recipe at a time our clothes are really clean again.
in addition this makes so much financial sense with front loading washers – the energy star estimate for our $650 machine is that we will spend approx $11. in gas heated H2O/year and use 160kWh in electriskity/year which in PA probably translates to about $16./year. this made me feel positively stupid when i spent $18. on 1 bottle of tide he and downy! but hey, it got me started on laundry until i could make my own.
that bottle of tide is still sitting there – i guess i’ll use it occasionally between batches of homemade. will be sharing this site/info with home friends, family and homeschool community in Delaware County, PA!
We just moved from city water to the country. Our well water has rust and no chlorine. The whites are turning orange. Very interesting comments about the detergents being designed to counter chlorine. The detergents (laundry and dish) that worked in town are not working here. Note: Oxyclean, my favorite stain remover, states on the label in fine print that it is not for rust. We are going to have to send the white dress shirts to town to be laundered.
I don’t know that our water is “hard” because shampoos and dish soap sud as well or better than in town, but an oily film is left in the dishwasher and a white crust now streaks down the front of the fridge from the water dispenser.
Anyone had experience with the recipe with rusty water? How about the vinegar and rusty water?
For Angela,
Our former home had rust in the water. It was not from the well, but was from rusty pipes. At one point my dh replaced the main water line from the well to the house and that improved the situation dramatically, but we were never able to replace the smaller lines into the various fixtures.
If this is your problem, buy filter screens for the water lines on the back of you washer, both hot and cold, and clean them regularly! It can cause the water inlet valve to clog and fail.
Also, you can run 1 cup of granular vitamin C through your dishwasher periodically to remove rust stains and keep the water inlet valve working – no dishes, no dw detergent (Tang can be used but it’s expensive.)
Have you considered having your water tested for minerals? I’d recommend getting the sample from the wellhouse instead of the kitchen sink.
HTH,
Sarah
Ok quick question about Fels Naptha and stain removers. If I use Fels Naptha to make my detergent, would I even NEED a stain remover?? I know when I rub Fels Naptha directly on the wet stain and rub and throw in the wash, every spot comes out. So if it’s in the detergent couldn’t I just skip that step? Also, a note on where to buy Fels Naptha: our local True Value now sells it along with some other “old” soaps and cleansers, I think it’s their way of competing with chain stores. I told them I appreciated them carrying certain products and they told me that they will order products at a customer’s request. So check out your True Value Hardware and see if they will carry it for you!
I am not sure, but I think it is a little different to rub it directly on there versus it being mixed in the detergent. I bet you will still want some for full strength for really bad stains.
My recipe seems to be simpler 1bar Fels-Napsa grated and melted in half a gallon of water
1cup of borax 1cup of washing soda 4 galllons of warm water mix in a five gallon bucket.
The mixture will set as it cools and it smells lovely! We use about one five gallon bucket a month and it cost about three dollars a bucket. I transfer a little to a smaller container and measure out a cup a load. For stains I use dish soap.
I did something wrong in making the laundry soap, what I got instead of “liquid” gel is full on “gel”–really thick stuff. I put a lid on the bucket during the first 24 hours….do you normally put a lid on it immediately or do you wait. If you do put a lid on first thing, I must have done something else wrong. But should someone else make this mistake, DON’T use it…apparently it won’t dissolve quite quick enough and the water will gush out of the detergent receptacle and all over the floor 🙁