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Making your own laundry detergent


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For those of you who make your own laundry detergent, does it work? I have been making the Duggars' recipe and it is cheap and easy, but we live on a farm with horses and we sweat! I just don't feel that our clothes are smelling as fresh as they should after being washed. I am not mixing it as weak as they say. Maybe that is it? Anyone have a better recipe or any ideas on what I could be doing wrong?

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I've tried different formulations for laundry detergent, and discovered that with our area's "hard water" anything based on real soap isn't going to work. They work for a while but the clothes just get continually less and less clean. (Basically the soap binds with the minerals to make 'scum' on hard surfaces which translates to 'dinge' on clothes.)

 

There are solutions out there, but they basically amount to adding the chemicals that are already in commercial detergents.

 

My solution: I use a home formulation without soap, but I also buy commercial detergent and only use 1/3 of the reccomended amount per load. This seems to provide enough chemicals for the important chemistry that needs to occur with hard water, while also taking advantage of the savings of a home made recipe.

 

My recipe is a dry mix: 1 part each of...

 

- Baking Soda

- Washing Soda

- Borax

- Unscented Oxi-Clean

- Sometimes a 'green' or organic alternative powdered detergent... still experimenting

 

Use 1 or 2 tbsp per load PLUS 1/3 of the reccomended amount of commercial detergent.

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I've tried both liquid and powdered versions of homemade laundry detergent, and it just doesn't work that well here. We have hard well water, and I even increased the borax in the recipe. But I noticed that the clothes still smelled after being washed. Even a not-really-sweat-in shirt of dh's still smelled very strongly of his deodorant after being washed.

 

I went back to using Purex, but switched to the natural elements version because one of my dc was getting rashes on his back when he got sweaty; we aren't sure if the regular purex was bothering him or not. Anyway, the NE Purex seems to be getting the clothes clean so we are sticking with it for now. I hate spending that much $ on detergent (even though it is one of the cheaper ones) but I don't want to deal with stinky clothes either!

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I'm another hard, well water, homemade detergent drop-out. I also found that over time, it didn't seem to be working as well. The clothes just never felt clean and, I hate to admit it, I *missed* the smell of commercial detergent. I know the fragrance doesn't mean it's clean, but I helped my MIL fold laundry and the smell of Tide pushed me over the edge. I bought a bottle the next day and I haven't gone back. I didn't tell the family, but they noticed the smell right away ("Mom, my sheets smell soooooo good") and then they noticed stains that the homemade stuff didn't touch, were gone.

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I am also on a well. I used the Duggar's recipe for over 2 years, maybe 3???? Anyway, I noticed the dinginess and build up as well and have gone back to commercial detergent.

 

I get the Kirkland (Costco) brand that is like Tide. I use about half of the recommended amount so honestly, especially when it is on sale, I spend about $3-$5/mo for detergent. It is worth it to me. Yes, it is more than the $1/month or less detergent, but I wouldn't exactly call it my "latte factor."

 

Dawn

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If you want cheap, and don't mind commercial, try Dawn blue dish soap. I learned this from the mom of 17 kids. She said it has to be Dawn and it has to be the blue stuff. You use 1 Tblsp. per large load. I've been doing this for about two years and have not noticed any difference from when I was using commercial laundry detergent, homemade laundry detergent and the inexpensive powder from the company whose name is a man's name that I can't remember right now. Seems to work great! And it's cheap, cheap, cheap compared to official laundry detergent.

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We dropped out, too. Used it about a year. But things started looking dingy and still smelled. I can't use scented stuff, so I'm used to clothes not smelling like anything. But I want it to smell like nothing, not stink.

Edited by Scuff
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I've tried both liquid and powdered versions of homemade laundry detergent, and it just doesn't work that well here. We have hard well water, and I even increased the borax in the recipe. But I noticed that the clothes still smelled after being washed. Even a not-really-sweat-in shirt of dh's still smelled very strongly of his deodorant after being washed.

:iagree:

Dh's clothes were stinky. Sometimes I would have to wash them twice. The rest of the laundry did okay, but I had to use hot water to get it clean. Soon I realized that with all the presoaking, pretreating, extra bleach, extra oxyclean, and having to wash in hotter water, I wasn't saving anything. One scoop of decent commercial laundry detergent in one cold load is better for the environment and my pocketbook.

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I used the homemade detergent for awhile, but I had the same problems with stinky/dinginess. I tried the dry recipe, and then I tried making the wet stuff. It seemed to work for awhile, but then after a few washings my clothes would come out of the dryer still smelling funky. And I am not living on a horse farm or anything interesting like that ;).

 

You could try alternating. One week use the homemade, the next week use the other stuff. For me it got too complicated to do that, so I just went back to store bought.

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If you use oxyclean in a wet recipe, it will only work temporarily -- the chemicals break down into hydrogen peroxide (a bleach) and washing soda. The washing soda is good, but the peroxide only works as a bleach until it breaks down by being not sealed, exposed to air and light. Basically it off-gasses all its goodness fairly shortly.

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I keep both commercial and homemade dry detergent in the laundry cupboard. Plus woolite for delicates. I use the homemade for darks, for 'dog towels' and rags, and for other things that just aren't very dirty or I don't care too much about them being perfectly clean. For whites and light colors that are dirty, I use commercial detergent. This seems to be a good compromise for me.

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We have hard water too, and putting 1/2 to 3/4 a cup of vinegar (either apple cider or white) in the rinse cycle and a dryer sheet in the dryer helped with this problem for us. When I can't be bothered to pay attention for the rinse cycle, I let the washer fill a little, put the vinegar in, then the clothes, then the detergent on top. It works, but not quite as well as waiting for the rinse cycle. I think the vinegar may affect the detergent a little when they're in there together. I am sure you can make your own dryer sheets also, but I haven't tried that yet. If you don't like the idea of a dryer sheet or dry yours on the line, the vinegar smell will disappear when the clothes are dry making your clothes pretty much odorless. I also missed the smell of commercial detergent and find the dryer sheet works well for a replacement.

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