Monday, February 25, 2013

DIY Homemade Laundry Powder



I was initially interested in making my own laundry powder when my husband, Mr Moo, started to break out in allergies each night before bed. I had recently bought a different powder in the groceries because the usual sensitive powder we got wasn't on special. Big mistake.

Suddenly I was aware of different ingredients and how really, I had no idea what was in the powder, but it made my husbands skin swell up where his clothes rubbed close to his skin.

Also, my 18 month old daughter has had eczema since she was born and I regularly sneeze whenever doing the washing. 


I did my research, so this blog post wont be reinventing the wheel, merely sharing my experience and hoping to encourage my own friends and family to make their own powder once they realise how simple (and cheap!) it is!


HOMEMADE LAUNDRY POWDER INGREDIENTS:
1 cup Borax 
1 cup Washing Soda
1 bar of soap

I found all of my ingredients at my local bin in and made approximately 500gm of powder for about $3.50



Notes on Borax:
Borax is a natural chemical that is found in laundry, hand soaps and tooth paste. It does your stain removing.

Notes on the Washing Soda:
Washing soda is a natural salt, and works as a natural water softener / odor remover.

Most online tutorials will tell you you need "washing soda powder" (a very fine powder), I found nothing of the sort in New Zealand, instead Washing Soda works just as fine in crystal form.


Notes on the soap:
I used an ordinary "lemon washing soap" from Binn Inn. You could use any soap, including baby soap if you want to go extra sensitive. This will do your degreasing.

Most online tutorials will tell you you need to grate then blend your soap up, but I found other tutorials saying this ruined their blenders and made their blades blunt. Instead I used the small, fine side of my grater and when that got clogged up with soap I just switched to the large side.


Put all of your ingredients in a sealed contained and give it a good shake to mix together. Shake your contained each time you use it so the large soap grates and soda crystals mix together well.


For a full load use 2 tablespoons of mixed up ingredients. Thats only HALF of one of the small "concentrated powder" scoops. Your 500gm batch of powder is going to last double that of a comercial batch.


And the verdict? Mr Moo hasn't had any reactions to this powder since we've started using it. Infact, when I said I was making my own powder he gave me a look of "yeah right, like that'll be good", and he hasn't even noticed a difference! 

I haven't sneezed, I dont even notice the powder when doing the washing, and Millas eczema has almost completely healed under her arms and in her elbow joints! 


Do you use your own washing powder, or any other thrifty do-it yourselfers around your home? Leave a comment and let me know! Its thrifty-cool!

Love, Sophie x



16 comments:

  1. I've been making my own laundry liquid for sometime now as lil Miss had terrible reactions to store brought stuff. My recipe is similar, however, is a liquid (and if you see my last post you will see it can clean your stove and your floor too)
    LOVE homemade laundry liquid

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  2. Hi Sohpie, I've been making Wendyl Nissens (the green goddess) liquid laundry soap for over a year now...looks gross but works great. Also, it makes a big batch. Have also made her dishwasher liquid, hand soap, and anti bacterial spray. The recipes are all there on wendylsgreengoddess.co.nz, and most of the ingredients you can get at bin inn, the supermarket, or health 2000/any place that sells essential oils

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  3. i'm very keen to give this a go, mainly as the husband is very prone to eczema, even though we always use eco-store, and to cut costs. i hadn't realised it was so straight forwards!

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  4. Might have to give that a go, thanks!

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  5. We started making our own powder about three years ago and then switched to homemade liquid about two years ago. Fortunately washing soda (fine) is very easy to find here in Oz so I have bought some to bring home,
    I also use Dr Bronners soap if I can find it...and we've found half a bar of sard is great for getting things extra white.

    We also make our own cleaner, spray n wipe and ant killer...

    It's hard to stop once you start hehe

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  6. We started making our own powder about three years ago and then switched to homemade liquid about two years ago. Fortunately washing soda (fine) is very easy to find here in Oz so I have bought some to bring home,
    I also use Dr Bronners soap if I can find it...and we've found half a bar of sard is great for getting things extra white.

    We also make our own cleaner, spray n wipe and ant killer...

    It's hard to stop once you start hehe

    ReplyDelete
  7. I make my own laundry liquid and have done for a good year or so. I like liquid better because I don't have to worry about powder reside on clothes. I use sunlight soap (pure soap and very cheap), water, borax and washing soda - in smaller quantities than your recipe - makes about 8 litres lasts for ages!! Good for you for making your own - it's also much kinder to the environment

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  8. I am SO going to try this when our stuff runs out.

    I have seen 'borax' in online washing powder recipes before but because I hadn't heard of it I just figured they were American recipes and 'we don't have that here' (small minded and lazy, I know).

    Thanks for sharing!!
    H

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  9. cool! I've always wanted to do this but have never got around to it. inspired...

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  10. I've been making my own for about 3 years, using Wendyl Nissen's recipe for the last two. I recently got a free sample (of supermarket stuff) and thought I'd use it, I couldn't believe how strong of chemicals it smelt and even out outside! You'll be making all sorts of cleaners now - it's addictive! Wish we had a Bin Inn nearby, I think they are only in the South Island now.

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  11. Hey Sophie - I used to make a very similar recipe a couple of years ago and found it good and economical. Fortunately none of us have skin irritations and I have to confess that in the last year or so I've got a bit lazy and now just buy my powder in bulk (it lasts about 6 months) and use about half the recommended amount per wash - which works for us really well.

    It's a funny co-incidence as the other day we ran out of dishwasher powder and I googled how to make our own - more out of convenience cos I really wanted to set a load off! We use baking soda (1 cup) and 1/2 cup each or citric acid and table salt all mixed together - with white vinegar as rinse aid. It works soooo well! Best of all- if my kids try and eat it, they wont get poisoned!

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  12. If you happen to want to make it again and don't want to trek to Bin Inn (I assume everyone has to make a trek to Bin Inn, the ones in Christchurch are really oddly placed around the city - even pre quakes they were hard to find!), PakNSave has Washing Soda in 1kg tubs for like $3-$4, they're yellow and old fashioned looking haha. I'm going to do that the first time so I have a container to keep it in, and from then on I'll probably do the Bin Inn trek to get it in bulk, save me from ending up with tonnes of the containers!
    Every recipe I've seen says you have to blend the soap to make it really fine, did it really work okay without that step?

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  13. Awesome - I am just starting down this road, partly as cost-savings and partly because we are a family full of allergies also (more food, but the little one has dry skin and both kids got excema (sp) as babies). Funny - I googled washing soda in NZ and your link was the second or third to come up; that is pretty high stats!!!!!!

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  14. Borax is banned in the UK so I just use grated pure vegetable soap and washing soda with a few drops of lemon oil because I love the scent,it works fine without the borax. If something has that damp towel smell I use a cup of white vinegar in the rinse.Been using this for about ten years,I would never go back to store bought.

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  15. The Clean Mama website is American so uses some ingredients/brands we don't have in NZ but they also use lemon essential oil and oil of cloves for a nice smell.

    http://www.cleanmama.net/2013/05/diy-homemade-cleaners-laundry-detergent.html

    Powdered Laundry Detergent

    1 bar castile soap (grated) – I like Dr. Bronner’s Citrus bar soap (great scent)
    2 cups Borax
    2 cups super washing soda
    1 cup baking soda
    30 drops essential oils (equal parts lemon and clove essential oils)

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hi This is very useful for all. Thank you for sharing with us
    Cleaning Products in Chennai

    ReplyDelete

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