Home made cleaning supplies

[Juniper]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

Has anyone attempted to make their own laundry detergent? If so, how were the results and any recommendations on clothes not to use it on or is it pretty versatile? I wear a lot of sweaters in the winter so I don't want to ruin 75% of my winter shirts in one wash.

Yup. I do. Grate up some kind of bath soap. I usually use Ivory, though most instructions say to use Fels Naptha - it really doesn't matter. You can also just save up bath soap slivers or use whatever is on sale. Dissolve it in 2 quarts of hot water on the stove - but beware - this pot may taste like soap for a while, I found out the hard way by making pasta shortly thereafter. Yuck. I use an old pot now, just for that. Anyway . . . I think then it's 1 cup of Borax and 1 cup of Washing Soda (not baking soda). Mix them all together and let it set up overnight in a bucket (cat litter buckets are good for this). You get a bucket full of weird looking gelatinous glop.

It works fine on everything I've tried so far, but it does work better if you dissolve it first in warm water then add the clothes. Which I guess is how you're supposed to do the wash anyway.

[glatt]

Does it really work out to be cheaper? I don't know what borax goes for these days, or what washing soda goes for. The washing soda sounds like a special order item and sounds fairly expensive. And bars of bath soap aren't free.

Vinegar is a lot cheaper than a bottle of spray cleaner. You can get a gallon of white vinegar for a couple of bucks, and clorox bathroom cleaner will cost maybe 5 bucks for a small bottle. So there's savings there, but some of these things sound like a lot of work for little savings.