Making your own laundry detergent is quite straight forward and will cost you pennies per load. But, is homemade laundry soap liquid really worth the effort and does it really clean a homesteader’s clothes? Read on for laundry soap recipes and how to make liquid laundry soap and see how it performs against other eco-friendly laundry detergents.
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Laundry is one of those things that need to get done on the homestead and can leave you feeling a little stressed when you’re juggling the garden or the livestock chores, especially once harvest season hits. Save yourself from climbing in the machine to hide from another trip to the store and have a go at making your own liquid laundry soap. It isn’t difficult and won’t take you all day. The best bit is that it costs a fraction of the price than the premade stuff on the shelf in the grocery store.
Why Use Homemade Laundry Detergent?
There are lots of reasons why homesteaders turn to homemade laundry detergent; it might be allergies, wanting to be eco-friendly, avoiding chemical additives or being frugal. I’m curious to see if I can make it and how my grafted gardening or coop muck out clothes or the dog’s bedding will fair after being washed with homemade laundry soap versus the natural eco-friendly detergents available commercially.
Homemade laundry detergent allows you to customize the scent, texture and what you put into it giving you control over your laundry. You can buy the soaps in unscented so you can completely design your own laundry soap fragrance or buy the scents which you already enjoy. Can you imagine making a laundry soap for the holidays which smells of cinnamon and clove or a lavender and ylang ylang scented laundry soap for the sheets to help you sleep? Well, now you can!
The other cool thing about homemade laundry detergent is you can dilute it down as an all-purpose cleaner around the home too.
What You Need To Make Homemade Laundry Soap Liquid
There are so many different laundry detergent recipes available online most of them only use a few materials which is why they usually cost pennies per load. Typical DIY laundry detergent recipes call for these ingredients:
- Washing soda
- Borax
- Bar soap such as Dial
, Zote laundry soap
, Dr. Bronner’s castile bar soap
or Fels-Naptha laundry bar soap
- Liquid castile soap
- Water
- Essential oils
, 
, 
or 
Follow any safety precautions directed on the ingredients and don’t make these whilst preparing food, you don’t want to confuse the washing soda for salt on your dinner!
>Recipe 1: Basic Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap
- 1 bar or Fels-Naptha laundry soap
- 1 cup borax
- 1 cup washing soda
- essential oils (optional)
Boil 4 cups of water in a pan.
Grate 1 bar of Fels-Naptha laundry soap.
Add the grated soap to the water and stir until it melts/dissolves.
Fill a 5 gallon bucket half way with hot water and add the hot soap.
Stir in 1 cup of washing soda until dissolved.
Stir in 1 cup or borax until dissolved.
Add 30 drops or so of essential oil if desired and stir.
Slowly fill the bucket with hot water leaving a good 6 inches from the top and stir to be sure all the gritty crystals or washing soda or borax have dissolved.
Cover the bucket with a lid and leave for 24 hours. This will turn the soap into a sort of jelly.
Use an old immersion blender to whiz up the liquid and the jelly bits. If you have over filled your bucket you might want to pour some out so you don’t create a mess with the blender!
Once whipped smooth, decant into a containers of choice.
To use:
1 cup of soap into the main drum not the soap compartment..
HE washers use 1/2 cup.
Recipe 2: Basic Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap
- 1 cup borax
- 1 cup washing soda
- 1 cup liquid castile soap
In a large saucepan, bring 6 cups of water to a slight boil. Once the water begins to boil, turn off the burner and add the borax and washing soda, stirring to until dissolved.
In a large bucket add the remaining 11 cups of warm water and 1 cup of liquid castile soap. If you wish, add 15-20 drops of essential oil.
Pour the hot borax-washing soda mixture from the saucepan into the bucket and stir the mixture together. Transfer your mixture into desired storage container, ice tea coolers and dispensers can be picked up really really cheap at the thrift store and make a great dispenser for your liquid laundry soap.
To use:
Use 1/2 cup per laundry load into the main drum, not the soap compartment.
HE washers use 1-2 tablespoons per load in the main drum.
Recipe 3: Small Batch Whipped Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap
I use this soap the most on my laundry. I make it thick and buttery, but not to put on toast.
- 1/2 cup Fels-Naptha
- 1/4 cup Dial bar soap
- 1/4 cup borax
- 1/4 cup washing soda
- 20 drops of essential oil (optional)
Grate the soap and place into a half gallon sized mason jar. In a saucepan, bring 6 cups of water to a slight boil. Once the water begins to boil, turn off the burner and add the borax and washing soda, stirring to until dissolved.
Pour about 3 cups of the water into the mason jar. Whip the soap and hot water carefully using an immersion blender. It will take a few minutes to go from watery to like a thick paint. Add the essential oils if using them then top up the jar with more water and whiz up again with the blender until filled as far as you like in the jar.
Put the lid on the jar and allow to cool down.
To use:
Use 1/2 – 3/4 cup per laundry load into the main drum, not the soap compartment.
HE washers use 1/4 cup per load in the main drum.
How Does Homemade Liquid Laundry Detergent Compare?
I started with washing the most nasty of my laundry: gardening clothes, old clothes for painting and the dog’s bedding. Stinky, muddy or covered in paint, sweat and tears (it’s very emotional remodeling a house!). The clothes look pretty clean and I used my usual cold wash setting on the washer. The scent doesn’t hold up to a spin through the dryer but lasts longer with drying on the line. It smells clean, not rosebud and jasmine or woodsy breeze or whatever the fragrances are in the commercial detergents and softeners but my family haven’t noticed that I’ve changed the laundry soap to anything else.
Homemade detergent doesn’t foam up like commercial detergent and the eco-friendly detergents feel like they get clothes cleaner and smell nicer. Are you a fan of homemade laundry soap? Do you have a favorite recipe to share? Let us know in the comments!
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I did for some time, make my own laundry powder. I tried laundry liquid but it tended to separate over time and it was a bit ‘gloopy’ so didn’t try it again, I wasn’t sure it was worth the bother. I have been using a commercial natural ingredients liquid but will likely go back to the powder, once it runs out, it’s cheaper to make and I know what’s in it.
Thanks for sharing Agnes. I love the idea of laundry powder, I bet it is a lot easier to make as well!
Hi Emma,
I have been making laundry soap for a few years now. I am sensitive to many fragrances so we removed nearly all cleaning supplies, soaps, perfumes and cosmetics with fragrances from our home.
I first tried making laundry soap with fels naptha and even though I could tolerate the scent my husband could not. Then I had a friend, who new that I made homemade bar soap, ask me if I could make one with coconut oil as the only oil. I said I would try and I did. She wanted to use it to make laundry soap. I began using it for this as well.
Recently I got tired of the bloody knuckles that I end up with when grating the bars so I put one in a quart jar with hot water and just left it. I would shake it now and then and just let it dissolve. It may have taken a day or two to dissolve fully but I now use this concentrate mixed with washing soda and borax for my laundry soap.
I find that it cleans best when I use warm or hot water and I have no need for fabric softener.
Hi Ruth,
Thanks for sharing these great tips! I’ll be looking for a good coconut oil soap recipe now!
I’ve heard of using the food processor can help avoid the bloody knuckles!
To make a soap with only coconut oil just decide how much coconut oil you want to use then go to a soap calculator – this is the one I use http://soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcWP.asp but there are others – enter the amount of oil then press calculate recipe and it will tell you how much lye and water you need. Do you make your own soap?
Thanks for sharing the calculator for the coconut oil soap 🙂
It’s something I have started this year, I need to make more time so I can have another go at making some!