Being all industrious and what-not

I have been inspired by my friend Hannah. Hannah blogs over at A Mother’s Creations – (you should check her out, her daughters are gorgeous and her photography is beautiful). Anyway… as I was saying she has inspired me to make my own laundry detergent. Chemical free, good for the environment AND good for my budget :)

Last year, just after Mayana was born, we bought this massive bulk pack of laundry powder, on this massive clearance for about $18.00, because the corner of the box was all smashed in. Cos that really affected the laundry powder (which was inside the box sealed in plastic vacuum pack)…. but anyway. We’ve just run out. We did well eh? So for the first time in about a year, we’re fresh out of laundry detergent. Unfortunately there are no damaged massive boxes on clearance anywhere I’ve looked. And then I was talking to Hannah about how she makes her own, so I decided to give it a go.

You have two options when you make your own laundry detergent. You can make a liquid, or a powder. Hannah makes the liquid. You make this massive 10L bucket of awesome goop, and use about half a cup in each load. I decided to go with the powder. Mainly because I don’t have a big bucket, and also because it has less steps and seemed easier. We’ll see how this one goes, and maybe next time I’ll make the liquid, maybe I won’t.

And because I know you’ll all be wondering – yes you can use either the liquid OR the powder in both front and top loaders. It’s totally low-suddsing (is that a word?). You just use about half as much in a front loader than you would in a top loader. I have a front loader, in case that matters.

So here we go: my first ever tutorial:

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN LAUNDRY POWDER

You will need:

Sunlight Soap ($2.95 for a box of four)
Lectric washing soda ($4.06 for a 1kg bag)
Borax ($6.00 for a container)

Here’s what you do:

Grate one bar of Sunlight Soap.

To the grated soap, add the following:

* 1 cup washing soda

* 1/2 cup borax

 

 

Whizz together in a food processor until you get a washing powder consistency. Apparently you can do this by just stirring it with a spoon or whatever, but this just seemed quicker and easier to me.

 

 

And then you’re done!

I’m storing mine in an old formula tin. A double batch would fill it perfectly, but I’ve just done a single one for now, until we know we’re happy with it. You need to use 1 tablespoon for each wash. The scoop that comes with our formula is around 1/2 a tablespoon, so that makes it super easy for me.

And voila!

How easy is that?

And super cheap. I’ll be able to make at LEAST another three batches out of what I bought, and each batch should last a good while I’d think.

I will update you on how it all goes, and how long it lasts for etc. Meantime… anyone else done this before? Hints? Tips? Tricks? Please share :)

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