How to Make Your Own HE Laundry Soap

You guys know what I love? The smell of freshly washed linens drying on the clothesline. It’s the perfect mix of lavender and sunshine. Yet for the past few months we’ve been dealing with major bouts of skin allergies so I’ve decided to start making my own laundry detergent. I have no idea if it will work or not but I’m willing to give it a try. It’s either make my own soap or make all of us soak in lotions and potions. I have to admit I’m a little scared to make my own laundry soap. Let’s face it washing machines are expensive and I don’t want to mess ours up.

I’ve read multiple articles online and they’re pretty much the same process and recipe. I was able to find all of these ingredients on the laundry aisle of my local grocery store. These are the ingredients we’ve decided to try:

1 bar of laundry soap approximately 5-7 oz; I chose Fels-Naptha Soap but you could also use Ivory, Pure and Simple, etc just be sure not to use a beauty bar or a moisturizing soap

1 cup of Borax

1 cup Washing Soda

¼ cup of Oxiclean (if desired)

Using a cheese grater, grate the laundry soap using the fine side of the cheese grater. You want to make sure the pieces of soap are small and easily dissolved in the washing machine.

In a blender mix the Borax and the Washing Soda together.

Next add the grated soap 1 cup at a time. This step gave my old blender a bit of trouble. And by trouble I mean it started smoking so be really careful. I opted to mix all of the laundry ingredients in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon. But again, you want to get the pieces of laundry soap as small as possible. If you choose to use it add Oxiclean to the blended mix at this point. Allow the entire mixture to sit in the blender for a few minutes as it will become a fine powder and you don’t want to inhale the mixture particles.

Use 1 tablespoon for lightly soiled and 2 tablespoons for heavily spoiled items.

I know there are many different models of HE washers and dryers so do additional research about your specific machine prior to using this homemade laundry soap. My model has different settings for liquid detergents and powder detergents. So far this recipe has been really economical to make and I know it’s better for the environment without all the additives. I’m not sure if it will get the laundry as clean but I’ll keep you guys posted. I’m hoping it’s going to be amazing.

Many blessings,

CoCo