I’m about to make a radical statement. Are you sitting down? This frugal, crunchy mama is about to spill it: Why I don’t make homemade laundry detergent.
Gasp!
I wrote on this topic a few years ago after several good, solid trials into homemade laundry detergent making adventures.
Why don’t I make homemade laundry detergent?
I’m so glad you asked.
Because homemade laundry detergent doesn’t work.
I had the same problem when I tried vegetarianism. I can barely get enough to eat when I am consuming animals, much less when I’m not. But may I never be accused of being closed-minded and not giving life hack experiments a fair shot.
I don’t know why some people love their homemade laundry detergent.
Perhaps their water rinses cleaner than mine (although I have soft water, so this is unlikely).
My guess is that some people want it to work so badly (because homemade laundry detergent looks so pretty in those big glass jars on Pinterest!) that they ignore the signs that it isn’t. For example, their family is complaining about stinky shirts. Perhaps they’re covering up the stink with so much essential oils so noone’s noticed yet.
I see a lot of bloggers who extol homemade laundry detergent. Perhaps all those posts and pins bring them so much traffic that they’re afraid to lose credibility by circling back around and admitting the stuff doesn’t work!
Or something. I dunno.
I just know that the Laundry Fairy hasn’t blessed me yet with a homemade laundry detergent recipe that works for more than a few months. This is just long enough for every article to be washed several times and the ill effects (smelly, dingy, grey clothing) show up.
Thankfully, I’ve found a ton of bloggers and even some scientists who say the same thing I’m saying here.
Why I don’t make homemade laundry detergent:
- Homemade laundry detergent doesn’t dissolve well, even using warm water. I can use COLD water for EVERY load of laundry with a commercial product and stuff gets cleaner. If you use the super-diluted “Duggar recipe”, the amount of any actual cleansing ingredients is so small as to be useless, making your recipe as useful as water. See this.
- Since it’s made of SOAP, not detergent (a very important distinction), it leaves a soap film that kills absorbency on towels and cloth diapers. Which defeats the purpose of those items.
- … the soap film also makes clothing dingy and grey.
- Everything will smell funky after a while. Soap, made of FAT, is a food source for mildew…
- … so everything will get moldy eventually. Maybe not right away, but on the next hot day or the next time something isn’t washed within minutes of being taken off your body.
- It leaves a ring around the washing machine (just like bathtub ring, which is caused by body oils + soap). Gross.
- Homemade laundry detergent clogs your plumbing!
- I can get laundry detergent for .04 a load by combining store sales and coupons, so homemade isn’t always a frugal choice in the end.
Laundry detergent is one of those modern inventions we can be thankful for.
Pictured above is the cabinet in my laundry room. On the left are 6 containers of Purex Free & Clear. I snagged those for pennies on the dollar by combining a store sale with coupons I printed online plus a cash-back app. The two containers of Clean & Care detergent I won from a giveaway.
If a great deal hasn’t come my way, I buy powdered original Tide and use one tablespoon in my front loader. Even in cold water, everything comes out clean and smelling fresh. I also use a bit of Tide in hot water to clean most everything in my house, a la @goCleanCo style.
How does homemade laundry detergent work for you?
More: another post with dirty little secrets of homemade cleaning products.
A few years ago I made my own laundry detergent, not anymore. I found the grating of the bar soap ingredient time consuming & a pain. I wash with cold water & the grated bar soap would not dissolve. I can’t remember having an issue with whether my clothes, sheets, & towels were clean or not… Just more bother than it was worth to me. I actually read a money-saving tip in a magazine, to add a tablespoon or two of Dawn dish soap to your load rather than laundry soap – which I have been doing with good results. Also, Dawn can be used, with great results, on stains as a pre-treatment.
I wrote a post almost exactly like this not so long ago. I’ve tried homemade, I’ve tried a bunch of natural soaps, and none of them work like detergent does.
I officially decided to give up and embrace my laundry detergent.
@Linda – That’s true, I’ve used dish soap with great success on stains. Makes sense because it’s created to deal with grease and food stains.
@Kristen – I remember! My last “no more homemade detergent” post was in 2013 and I decided to resurrect the topic.
You’re making me worried! I do not make my own laundry soap – but I am a die-hard lover of soap over detergent. I’ve been using Charlie’s laundry soap exclusively for 5 years (on all of our laundry). I find that if we use detergent (when visiting family or on vacation with laundry facilities) *that* seems to leave a film on our clothes. Even the free and clear stuff. It just makes everything feel so…icky.
But! I think our towels ARE less absorbent. Maybe I should get some detergent just for towels and continue to do clothes in soap?
At least since Charlie’s is a commercial product I’ve never had any problems with soap rings in the washer or mildew or smells on clothes.
Just wanted to say, I am with you, girl! I’ve tried it several times, homemade liquid and powdered. Neither worked. I actually have half a bucket left from the last effort which I won’t waste by trashing, but will use it here and there when in a pinch.
Also, I will never be able to get detergent at the “steal” prices that frugal bloggers do. Now, I am just talking about me. The biggest frustration I have been finding is when bloggers and deals sites post that something is such a great buy after coupon and I go to see the deal and find that it’s after a rebate app offer’s been applied, too. I don’t own a cell phone as I must be frugal by necessity. So many deals are done this way now rather than just a sale stacked with a coupon. Grr.
@Jesabes I used to use Charlie’s and liked it a lot. From what I researched, it isn’t a soap but a detergent.
I do use homemade laundry detergent. The main reason is due to my son’s allergies. He has multiple food allergies (dairy, egg, soy, peanut) but also has allergies to other things. We used to use the Free and Clear brands and even those didn’t work for him. He had “alligator skin” – so rough and itchy. He would ask us to scratch his back constantly and he constantly had bloody areas on his skin from the scratching he was doing. It all went away when I started using homemade.
We do have a natural laundry detergent he can use and in a pinch I will use it but it’s SO expensive that I can’t use it all the time even if it’s only for his laundry.
I have found that the type of soap I use in the homemade makes a huge difference. I used to use Ivory but that left a film. I find that the Fels Naptha works great but it is designed as a laundry product so maybe that’s why.
That’s frustrating Rebecca. Have you ever tried Foca? It’s usually found in the ethnic foods section of a larger grocery store or WalMart, or go to the Latino part of town and look there. It’s VERY cheap and extremely effective. It smells like baby powder, but the smell isn’t overwhelming. I’m actually using it right now after finding a HUGE bag of it at WalMart for $7.
Hmmm. Interesting. I am going to send this to my mom and see what she thinks. She has been making her own for years and I think still loves it. And she’s not a blogger so it’s not because her pins are going viral 😉 hahaha.
But I find it so interesting that you’ve had such a different experience. I am going to see what she thinks!
I made my own laundry soap a while ago and hated it. I had the exact same results. Now I use a laundry soap with no perfumes and dyes. I use Fels Naptha for stains and love it. I just found wool dryer balls for my dryer instead of dryer sheets.
I used to use homemade laundry detergent, then we moved and it began leaving marks on our clothes which looked like grease stains.
Then I switched to commercial detergents. Found my husband and kids were allergic to the cheaper brand I could get in our small town. The coupons were so horrible I stopped buying the papers.
It is amazing the ways you find to save when all your other options are taken away. Thankfully internet coupons and online shopping increased, as well as I found a cheaper store to shop at. I still ended up spending more than I needed to over the years (I kept up old habits, which were not longer money saving, longer than I should have).
I miss the idea of homemade, but love the cleanliness of what works.
I agree Rosie!
Before going back to work and grad school, I did make my own detergent. However, I used Fels Naptha; and I would add the Totally Awesome oxy cleaner to the recipe as well because as a boy mom we had mutant dirt. It was the ONLY thing I could use on my son’s clothing due to allergies he eventually grew out. I used the powder version so no plumbing issues either. Our clothes were always clean without an issue there either. My trick was using old food processor to blend and adding generic oxy clean. I tweaked recipes, but I did notice those who didn’t tweak the recipe had the issues you described.
Found this interesting….because I have used homemade laundry soap for over 7 years…and not had a problem. I do use a liquid version (powdered didn’t dissolve in cold for me). I do occasionally use a vinegar rinse on towels to “strip off soap build up” (a trick I learned when I used cloth diapers on my first born). That is only on towels though. I wonder if you may have used too much homemade soap per load? I do make sure our clothes are “good and dry”…..and bring a homeschool mom…I’m able to move clothes from washer to drier Immediately… not sure if that makes a difference too. My son has sensitive skin so we could only use laundry detergent without heavy fragrance and without dyes before….and he did not have any reaction when we switched to the homemade laundry soap…. so for us it’s quite a money savings, just sharing my thoughts. 🙂
so glad it worked for you!
My stuff works, but it took many failed tries. Recipes vary, and no matter who says otherwise, I have rotten luck with essential oils smelling good and longer than it takes for them to evaporate (which is to say not long). My detergent quest was so I’d know what was in my laundry. By the time I got a formula that worked, I was back to having no clue as some things don’t break it all down. Here’s what works FOR ME:
1 Box of Biz or 2 boxes Kroger color safe bleach (about 60 oz of either). And I have no clue what all is in these products, but they contain enzymes and enzymes are necessary in my laundry for both oils and organic stains (grass, wine, blood, etc.). Not all enzymes are the same and are effective on different matter, but Biz and color safe bleach from Kroger do well on most stuff
1 box (56 loads) Oxi-Clean or Kroger or Dollar General generic. They have sodium carbonate (washing soda) and sodium percarbonate (the thing that makes Oxi-Clean all oxygeny).
3 bars Fels-Naptha crumbled and processed. Google microwave method for Fels-Naptha. Much easier than grating. Toss it in your food processor with a few scoops of Oxi-Clean (or generic) to get it wine and keep it from gumming up your processor.
Scent crystals. These are mostly salt and perfumes, but I have sensitive skin and the Arm & Hammer brand and Pyrex don’t hurt my skin I use approximately 30 ounces.
Shake it up in a cat litter jug, bucket with lid or whatever is handy.
Save the Oxi-Clean clean containers to give to your broke college aged daughter who pretends to love it because it’s free. Or maybe that’s just me…
Happy you’ve found something that works for you!