DIY washing powder | Healthy housekeeper

Here’s how to make your own safe, non-toxic laundry detergent that’s about half the cost of buying high-quality, eco-friendly private label.

If you do a lot of laundry at home, it might make sense to look into making your own washing powder and homemade fabric softener.

The cost of making a batch that washes 40 loads is about $3. This corresponds to 8 cents per charge.

In contrast, a good quality (truly) non-toxic powder detergent (like this brand) costs 16 to 21 cents per load, depending on the retailer and size purchased.

So if you buy your own green washing powder, you can save about half the initial cost!

Note that many brands of so-called “safe” washing powder are questionable at best if you look closely at the ingredients ?

Read the labels carefully and be careful not to be fooled by buzzwords!

Making your own green, unscented, hypoallergenic washing powder takes just a few simple ingredients.

Some may question my suggestion of briefly microwaving the bar of soap listed in the ingredients to soften it before grinding it into soap flakes in a food processor.

While it’s best never to use a microwave to cook food or heat water, it’s occasionally useful for projects like making your own laundry soap.

If you prefer to hand grind the unscented castile soap bar, this definitely works as an alternative.

However, it requires a lot of muscle power and the results are not that good in my opinion.

To be honest, if I had to hand grind the bar of soap to make each batch of DIY washing powder, I probably wouldn’t do it as it’s quite a chore!

Homemade washing powder

instructions

1. Heat the castile soap bar in the microwave for 30 seconds. Flip the bar and microwave for another 30 seconds. Repeat for another 30 seconds on each side.

2. Remove the soaked bar from the microwave and roughly chop into pieces while still hot.

3. Refrigerate the cut soap bars for 5-10 minutes.

4. Finely grate the still warm, roughly chopped soap bars in a food processor into soap flakes.

5. Mix borax, washing soda, and soap flakes in a pint container. Close the lid tightly and twist several times to ensure it is mixed thoroughly.

6. Use 2 tablespoons of this DIY laundry detergent per medium load.