How to Make Liquid Laundry Detergent

I'm no eco-warrior, I don't even buy into the whole mankind has created climate change argument, I'm more on the side of the planet has cyclical events - anyhow, that's a whole different post.  No, I'm not an eco-warrior, but I am a money saving warrior, especially since every time I go to the supermarket prices have shot up again.  I was never particularly profligate with money anyway but I bought everything I needed..... until now.

When I go to the supermarket and see the cheapest brand name liquid laundry detergent is £4 for 1 litre I'm kind of put out by that - I mean, really, £4, is that really what it costs to produce, package, transport and a little bit on top for the retailer?  I couldn't really accept that so I started looking for a way to produce it myself.  I costed it all out before I bought any of the ingredients - I also wanted to see how readily available ingredients were.  The result?  Five litres of liquid laundry detergent for £2.95!!!  And it's not difficult to make at all, so here goes with a quick tutorial on how to do it yourself.

First you'll need to assemble the ingredients, I got the recipe from http://whynotsew.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/how-to-make-homemade-laundry-detergent.html.  I halved this recipe because I don't have the storage facilities for two gallons, here's what I used:

1 bar of Dove (100g)
1/2 cup of Soda Crystals
1/2 cup of Borax substitute (you can't buy Borax in this country because of EU regulations!!)
A 5l container
Funnel
Spoon for stirring
Grater

The measuring spoon at the front is the equivalent of half an American cup measurement so I used one scoop this size.

It's actually a longer job to grate soap than you might imagine, but persevere because the end result is worth it.

And here is the grated bar of Dove.

I then half filled this pan with hot tap water and popped it on the cooker. 

Just a word of warning here - producing the detergent is not cooking, it is chemistry so reasonable precautions need to be taken for the next step (like wearing rubber gloves).

When your soap has all dissolved add the Borax and the Soda crystals and stir until dissolved (keep the pan on the heat during this).  WARNING: when you add the Borax it fizzes up slightly so make sure you've got a big pan to do this in.

You'll notice that the mixture thickens to the same consistency of shop bought detergent, keep it on the heat to thicken more then leave to cool and pour into your 5L container.  Top up the container with hot tap water - I then left it to cool before I put the lid on.

Here's my 5L container:

As you can see, I didn't quite fill it to the top, I wanted to see if there was any expansion during cooling.  After around 6 hours there was no expansion so I topped it right up, put the lid on and gave it a good shake.

I was using Surf and have a measuring cup that comes with it, that's what I'll be using to measure out my detergent and I'll be putting it in the drum, not the drawer.

One last thing, this detergent will not create suds, it's not suds that clean anyway so it doesn't matter, they're just there to make us think the detergent is working when it would work anyway!

So there is my 5L of laundry detergent for £2.95.  Based on 1 litre being 28 wash loads (as it says on my Surf bottle), this is enough for 140 wash loads, which equates to just a fraction more than 2p per load! (0.02107p for those that want to know).

I hope this is clear and that it will be of help to you.  Let me know at www.facebook.com/scentsifythenation how you get on.

Thank you for reading.