Homemade Powder Laundry Detergent

July 17, 2014October 15, 2014by Adrian in Cleaning 13 Comments
homemade powder laundry detergent

Homemade Powdered Laundry Detergent…and why I don’t use fabric softener.

A couple of years ago when my husband and I decided I would be the one to quit work to stay at home with our children it was one of the toughest things I had to deal with on an emotional level. Most moms dream of being able to afford to be a stay at home mom. In all honesty it was my dream too. But that was all it was…a dream. I was raised to believe that the only way to contribute to society was to be a hard worker, which to me meant working hard for someone else. Boy was I deluded:) Being a stay at home mom IS hard work. It’s a heck of a lot harder than working for someone else!homemade powder laundry detergent

And when your household income is cut by one it’s an even bigger challenge. So I set out to WORK HARD to cut our household expenses. One of those things was to make most everything we use homemade instead of purchasing everything pre-made. Most everything in this house is homemade, either by me, my husband or our kids.

Homemade Powder Laundry Detergent is one of those things. With us having 4 kids and 2 adults in our home you can imagine the amount of laundry we have on a daily basis. Our laundry expense was ridiculous. The price of laundry detergent just kept going up and up in price and the load amount per box went down:( So I did what any hardworkin’ momma does and set out to figure out how to cut the expense. And boy did I.

homemade powder laundry detergent

Googling homemade powered laundry detergent results in numerous recipes that are different in some way or another. I played around with them until I came up with one that suites us but before I tell you what it is I want to tell you why we no longer use fabric softener either.

I used to use a couple dryer sheets per load. The detergent cleans our clothes but it doesn’t really have a smell and I LIKE that fresh clean smell that comes with clean clothes. BUT, no sooner than we would grab a fresh clean towel and dry off with it, it STANK (the towel, not us)! Usually I would go buy more and just cut the older ones up for my husband to use outside, but remember, I’m trying to cut our budget not add to it. And a bunch of new towels are not in the budget.

Well Google came to my rescue again. I found out, by doing some research, that fabric softener actually coats your clothes with a water proof barrier. Well, what cleans our clothes? WATER! So by using all that fabric softener I was actually preventing our clothes from getting clean. I had no idea! So now I use VINEGAR to help with static clean. I just fill up the section in the washing machine that you’re supposed to put liquid fabric softener in with vinegar and let it do it thing. Works like a charm. So to get the nice smell I was looking for by using fabric softener I now add Purex Crystals to my recipe of Homemade Powder Laundry Detergent.

homemade powder laundry detergent

Not only did I tell you all this for informational purposes and to help you cut your budget but if you will look in the picture of ingredients you won’t see the Purex Crystals. That’s because I took this picture before I found out this great information. As another FYI I don’t need to add bleach to our whites anymore either! Score 3 for me! Now on to the fabulous recipe…

homemade powder laundry detergent

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Homemade Powder Laundry Detergent
Prep time: 
Total time: 
 
Ingredients
  • 1 Zote soap bar, finely shredded (I use an old cheese grater, DO NOT use your good food processor, it will ruin your blades)
  • 1 cup Oxygen all purpose stain remover or Oxyclean
  • 1 cup Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda
  • 1 cup Borax
  • ½ cup Purex Crystals
Instructions
  1. Pour all ingredients in a container mixing well.
  2. Use ⅛ cup scoop per load of laundry.