Clean Clothes

Alright. I give up. I'll try it. I've seen DIY laundry detergent online before, but thought that it was silly and probably not as good... I mean does homemade laundry detergent have convincing commercials with grass stain removal and fields of good-smelling flowers? NO.

However, a couple things started to change my mind.
1. When Jeremy and I go to the grocery store and need laundry detergent we stand and stare at all the bottles. We usually both end up smelling five before we give up and get the same stuff we usually do.
2. I used our favorite detergent (Purex Linen and Lilies) to strip wallpaper and now I am reminded of wallpaper everytime I do wash.
3. I really like the smell of lavender and it's tough to find in a reasonable quantity for a reasonable price.


So I found a tutorial for making soap here.

Here's what carrying it out looked like.

First I grated 7/8 of a bar of soap and diluted it in water.

 

Added the cup of borax and the cup of washing powder, brought it to a boil. Then I filled half of the final container with cold water and mixed in the hot mixture.

Is my laundry going to be clean? I don't know yet. I have a load washing right now... we'll see! Hopefully it smells like that lovely lavender I want.

Is this cost effective? Here's how it works out.

Ingredients:
1 bar Tom's all natural soap: $2.50
Borax: $4.39
Arm and Hammer Washing Powder: $3.15

Total Cost (2 loads/batch): $10.04
Purex: 12.50 for two bottles (to equal 64 loads)

At this first load I save $2.64 cents... Now that I have the materials...

For our purposes let's say that I have 7 cups left in each of the boxes (just an estimate, I definitely have more than that in the borax). Since now I know that I am doing this let's say I look for soap on sale for $2--I like ritzy, natural soap.

So that's $2 for 64 loads.
$2 x 7 = $14
$12.50 x 7 = $87.50

$87.50-$14= $73.50

Alright, saving $73 dollars with this strategy? If it works well and smells good I can imagine this is a practice I'll continue.