Homemade laundry detergent

I recently did research trying to find a homemade laundry detergent and I came across a few that I liked. I found the recipe from the Duggar family, but found that another blogger had a great recipe for a powder detergent that I just LOVE! It has a great smell, cleans my clothes wonderfully and you only have to use 1 Tbsp!! You heard me right, 1 TABLESPOON!! Crazy!! Now if you have those loads that include your husbands work clothes, or, your children's sports stuff you can go ahead and use 2 T for extra duty stain lifting and cleaning. You can also find the original recipe here.

Homemade Laundry detergent 

1 (4 lb 12 oz) Box of Borax

1 (3 lb 7 oz) Box of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda

1 (3 lb) Container of OxyClean

2 bars of Ivory regular soap

2 (2 lb) Boxes of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, or, 1 4lb box (I found it hiding, and some store do not carry this size so don't worry if you do not find it)

1-2 (55 oz) Bottle of Purex Crystals Fabric Softener ( I used only 1 and it was plenty)

 

First you will need to take the bars of ivory soap and grate them into a large bowl that you will not be using for food prep. Then you will need to take a large container, one that has a lid, and layer your grated soap, baking soda, washing soda, borax, oxy clean, and purex crystals (this makes it a little easier to mix). I would also make sure that when you are mixing, or, even pouring the ingredients to be in a well ventilated area as there will be dust. Once it is all mixed together you can place a little into the oxy clean container, or, you can use the purex crystals bottle, both will work fine. Note: If you do decided to use the purex bottle, which is what I did, know that the top is pretty hard to remove! Also, and this is a good thing, the small cap on the purex bottles actually has line indicating small or large loads and the first line equals 1 T, and the second line indicates 2 T!! Pretty cool!!