Last November we were running out of laundry detergent and I had seen on Pinterest a DIY Laundry Detergent recipe. We already use the powder version of Tide detergent which is cheaper than the liquid and this is supposedly cheaper and better than name brand so I thought I would give it a go.
I found everything I needed at Wal-Mart which included Washing Soda ($3.24), Baking Soda ($2.12), Borax ($3.38), OxyClean ($7.52), Fels Naptha soap (2x $0.97), Purex fabric softener crystals ($4.76) and a new Rubbermaid container ($3.97) to mix it all in. In total, this all cost me $26.93.
I followed the directions and I would say the most time consuming part was grating the soap. I tried a cheese grater and also a lemon zester, and I found the lemon zester was a little easier, but still a pain. I layered a little of each ingredient in the Rubbermaid and then mixed it as best I could.
It says you only need about 1-2 tbsp per load, but I think we were using more than that. She states that this would only cost you $28/year based on 6 loads of laundry per week. I would say we do between 6-8 loads per week. We used up the last of our homemade detergent this week, so it only lasted us 4 months, not 12 like she states. That means we must be using closer to 3x the amount of detergent needed.
While it did seem to wash our clothes just as well as the name brands, I think I’ll be going back to Tide, since it is more convenient and not much more expensive at our current rate of usage. And besides, these companies spend lots of money on perfecting their product. If this was a more “green” laundry detergent then I might consider using it again, but with the ingredients listed, I don’t think that it is.
1 comment:
I made homemade laundry detergent once before too. I did not price it out though. It was ok. It seemed to work fine, but I havent made any more since then either.
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