Comments on: Home Made Laundry Detergent One Year Later

By: Felicia

Felicia — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:05:05 +0000

Thanks for the deodorant tip. I’ll give it a shot.

By: JReference

JReference — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 01:09:21 +0000

Will be trying the home-made liquid laundry detergent… found all ingredients at my local supermarket within 1/2 hr. of reading the above posts!
Wanted to offer a heads-up on using baking-soda as a personal deoderant – shake a little (a little!) into the palm of your hand and then ‘toss’ it up into your armpit. Be sure to brush-off any excess (anything that doesn’t stick or fall into your skin-pores) and if you use too much you’ll find it a skin-irritant. A little experimenting will get you the “right” amount for you. Lots cheaper than store-bought stuff, and it works great! You can also use baking-sode as a no-water shampoo, just work it into your scalp and brush, shake, and comb it out.

By: Felicia

Felicia — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:53:17 +0000

I hear ya, Courtney.

I’ve tried diligently to reduce the number of laundry loads each week, but I just can’t seem to do it. Glad to know I’m not the only one.

By: Courtney

Courtney — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:27:22 +0000

Great posts and info! My sister and I are making our 1st batch of this today. Lots of great tips. It’s a bummer though that some people get too inflammatory with their comments. We all lead very different lives and it’s rather snarky to blast someone elses laundry water usage. What if Somebody had an invalid or unwell person that you were a caretaker for? The special beddings and cleaning cloths necessary to provide quality care would make more laundry. As a mother of two very busy and messy toddlers and a hard working husband we have ALOT of laundry. Never less than 10+ a week. We use an HE machine and reuse towels and clothing, but we need clean clothes for clean bodies. We have many towel/hankie/cloth loads since we don’t use much in the way of paper towels or Kleenex.

Thanks again for the info!!!

By: Felicia

Felicia — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:25:44 +0000

Jess you point out something very important. The recipe is forgiving. It’s a great start, but it is modifiable. You know you have the recipe right when you have clean clothes and you save money.

I too have found that it dissolves very well with cold washes. Maybe its because we use so much less of it per wash than we would have used with the commercial brands.

Good to hear that it’s working well for you.

By: Jess

Jess — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:01:41 +0000

I just took another look at the powder recipe and realized that I’ve been getting my ratios wrong. Oh well! I haven’t noticed anything wrong with the detergent. It’s good to know that this process is a bit forgiving.

I’ve been making my own (powdered) laundry detergent for a few months now and I couldn’t be happier. I snicker to myself every time I see laundry detergent “on sale” for $6.99 per small-sized bottle.

I used to buy only liquid detergent because I wear a lot of black and found I would get powder stains from washing with powdered detergent, but that hasn’t been a problem at all since I started making my own powdered detergent. I wash only in cold water, at it works great.

By: Felicia

Felicia — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:46:22 +0000

Hi Mike,
The only advice I can offer with regard to ivory snow flakes is to try making a small batch to see how it works.

As far as the fragrant oils, I’m partial to lavender. Keep in mind, however, that the fragrance seems to benefit the person washing the clothes, but not so much the person wearing them. Although I put lavender into the recipe, it doesn’t seem to transfer to the clothes. Maybe I’m not putting enough fragrance into the liquid laundry detergent batch to make the clothes smell like lavender (I use about 8 – 10 drops), but since my husband and son aren’t too crazy about smelling like lavender, it works well for me. The lavender is my aroma therapy while I wash clothes.

By: mike

mike — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:02:54 +0000

hi felicia
on the powdered soap receipe can you use 2/3 bar grated ivory soap instead of the fells napa or 1 cup ivory snow flakes?
what are your thoughts on this?
im going to make up a big batch for my brother.he has a front loading machine and 4 kids ages from 6 to 15 and he washes everyday.full loads.

not sure about the liquid detergent.i was thinking of using old laundry det.bottles and giving them a good shake before using to get rid of any clumps.
3 of the kids are girls.if adding the frangrant oils to the batch,what oils would you recommend and how many drops to add?
what oils would be pleasing to everyone? thanks, mike

By: Felicia

Felicia — Sat, 30 May 2009 12:35:12 +0000

Thank you for the valuable information Meme. I’ll modify the recipe to notify my readers.

By: Meme

Meme — Fri, 29 May 2009 04:54:19 +0000

please note that the fals soap you buy now is not the original soap from a 100 years ago- in 1943 they began making it with petrochemicals and 3 years ago they changed one of those chemicals again – it was a stoddard chemical which had more danger to health so they changed it to terpentin which is what turpentine is made from- you can find the safety sheet on the web and look at the industrial one- I email Dial and they do not recommend that you make any kind of soap with fals…….plus mixing with other chemicals- even though borax is a nature chemical – it is still a chemical- and the dust and fumes from fals can make you sick with out even know it- if you must use it- use a mask-
I now use ordinary ivory soap as being green means we need to know what we are doing- I thought fals was just a natural green soap also until I did the homework– so please be careful what you are making and using for your health- The Dial company only recommends that you use this soap as per instructions on the package- you can google for the safety data sheet for almost any soap or detergent- some laundry detergents are safer to use than making up soap with fals-