Justine Going Green: Making detergent

At the beginning of the year, I wrote out a list of my resolutions. Throughout the year, I have slowly been attempting to tackle them. One of my resolutions was to live more frugally. I have started to use coupons. Definitely not to the level of TLC's Extreme Couponing, but I am trying to drastically reduce our grocery bills.

One of the more expensive things that you can buy without using coupons is laundry detergent. Once I started using coupons I was able to get it significantly cheaper, but I was still thinking about the chemicals that go into the detergents, especially with a little guy who has sensitive skin. I started looking for a effective way to wash laundry minus the chemicals. I came across this post, from my friend, Andrea over at Jada Roo Can Do. (Awesome blog, by the way, you should totally visit her)! I had read a couple of things about making your own detergent, but when I got a testimony to it being just as effective, I was sold. It was just a matter of going out and getting my supplies.

You can view the recipe I used here, at the Duggar's website. The supplies consist of borax, super washing soda, and Fels-Naptha soap. The hardest part of this whole process was grating the soap. Once it was done, it looked like this:

I had a hard time convincing Logan that it was not cheese. He kept asking, "Can I have some?" He seemed quite perplexed that I would not give him any. I offered him some string cheese instead, which he took, but he still looked at me skeptically.

Next I melted the soap into four cups of water over heat.

I didn't take any pictures of the next bits, but I just directly followed the recipe. The hardest part besides grating the soap was waiting 24 hours to see what it looked like in the end. When I looked at it today it was like gelatin. I filled a clean detergent bottle with half of the mixture and half water. I'll only use about 1/2 a cup since I have a top loader, and I still have an almost full five gallon bucket left to use when I run out. This whole thing was so inexpensive. I got all of my supplies at Walmart, and I think it was around five or six dollars total, but it will clean a zillion (yeah, I know that's not a real number) loads of laundry. I've never been more excited to do my laundry tomorrow morning!

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