Tightwad tip: making your own laundry detergent

For as long as I can remember, the recipe of homemade laundry detergent is circulating around the blogosphere - the frugal blogospgere that is. Some people add a bit more ingredients, such as washing soda or borax, or both, while others prefer to keep it as plain as possible. No matter how you make it, it's going to save you LOTS of money. I did some math, and compared to the cheapest powdered detergent I can find here (bought in bulk which is cheaper than the smaller packages), using a frugal dose, my homemade detergent is still five times (!) as cheap, per load, compared to the cheapest powdered store bought detergent. That doesn't seem to be a lot, but small things add up - especially when you do several loads a week. If I'd compare it to the more expensive name brand detergents such as Ariel or Tide, it's an even bigger saving. 

I've been making this on and off for years - at times I switched back to store bought detergent, only to realise that those store bought detergents don't really work better than the homemade ones. The big companies have done their utmost best to make us customers believe that store bought detergent cleans much better. And not only that - they also make us believe that you really need to have something scented, otherwise it's "not clean". I've been making this detergent again for a while, and now that I'm back to making it, I don't get why I sometimes did switch to the store bought stuff. Probably because of the scent, despite the scent usually being gone when completely dried. Apparently the pro-scent marketing worked for me too, despite me being sensitive to most scents! But not anymore. Clean is clean, even if it's smells of "nothing" (and line dried laundry always smells fresh already!). I read that weaning yourself off of scented detergents to scentless ones is like weaning yourself off of food with artificial flavours. And I think that's a rather good comparison. In a few weeks, you're so used to it that the smell of store bought detergent is just overwhelming. If our grandmothers could just use soap for cleaning clothes, and didn't miss a scent, so can we. It takes some adjustment because we're so used to all the chemicals and scents- something our ancestors didn't have to worry about. 

I remember the hard financial times we went through, and making my own detergent was just a life saver, as we were already very penny pinching but still couldn't get by. At least our clothes could be washed for almost nothing! We had the assurance to have clean clothes and that we still could afford simple foods instead of having to borrow money for food because there wasn't any money left after having to buy detergent (I've heard that way too often!). Last year, I bought a 10 KG bulk sack of powdered detergent and was shocked that the price had more than doubled in a year. We don't go through an insane amount of detergent, but why paying a high price for something that isn't even food? Heck, it's even bad for our health - despite it not being that heavily scented, I still get respiratory issues of it, not to mention that most detergents (except the very expensive green ones) itch on our skins. The environmental impact of homemade detergent is obviously not as much compared to store bought, as it contains less harsh chemicals, doesn't come in much packaging and doesn't need a car to for transportation- as detergents usually come in heavy packages. So a in all these are all good reasons, in my opinion, for making detergent. 

No more talking, here's how I make it. You'll need: 

A bar of soap of approximately 80 gram (I've never really measured it, one gram more or less doesn't really matter), whatever brand or kind you prefer

5 liters of water 

Grate the bar of soap and dissolve in a litre of hot water- just stirr it until it's all melted, usually it reaches a boiling point by then. While I'm stirring I have another pot on the hob with 1.5 litre water that I want to reach a boiling point. If it boils, just combine the hot soapy water with the hot plain water in a bucket that's big enough and add another 2.5 litre water, just cold tap water. Make sure to rinse the pot in which you were stirring the soap with hot water as there are usually remnants there. Cover it with a lid and let it sit for a day - I usually make it in the morning and won't come back to it the next day's morning, which means I let it sit for around 24 hours. You could probably also wait a little bit less. If using soap that is palm oil or tallow based, the soap will likely thicken. It's a bit difficult to handle as it's quite lobed, so you need to stirr it with a whisk (or use an immersion blender). I usually kind of knead it with my hands. And then I transfer it to an old 5 L jug (a one that had washing up liquid in it). If using olive oil based soap your detergent probably won't thicken and stay liquid, but that won't make any difference in terms of cleaning. 

Just a few notes: some people add more ingredients such as washing soda of borax. I can't find either of them here, so I just only use soap, and although I did add washing soda when I made this when living in the Netherlands, I haven't noticed a difference with or without it anyway. But if you prefer using washing soda, you can totally use it. Just make sure to add the exact same weight of that. So when using 80 grams of soap for instance, you'll need 80 grams of washing soda as well, which you'll add after the grated soap has melted. With borax I don't have any experience. There's also powdered detergent recipes out there, which I'm yet to try, and they all use a bit of different ingredients (some use washing soda, some both washing soda and bicarbonate of soda, some even use plain salt, etc). My mother in law is an old fashioned woman who always used soap instead of harsh chemicals, and didn't even bother to make a "detergent" out of it. She always rubbed some fabric with soap, an old sock for example, and then put that in her semi automatic washing machine.  So if you're too lazy to grate, that is even an option too 😉