I'm really turning into a hippie now! Not only have I adopted a vegan lifestyle, but I had been thinking of making my own laundry detergent for a while now. I was on my last few drops of detergent and I had time to swing by the store this afternoon and grab the ingredients to make my own.
I had found this really easy recipe and it turned out to be a nicely scented and beautiful white powder. According to the instructions, you can "grate" the soap, but after 10 minutes of that, I just broke it apart with my hand and put small batches with the borax and Arm & Hammer in my food processor. This smoothed out the lumps and created a fine powder.
For my recipe, I used:
3 cups 20 Mule Team Borax ($0.96)
3 cups Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda ($1.41)
3 bars Ivory soap ($2.06) *Use Dr. Bronner's bar soap for a vegan version*
Total cost: $4.43
My recipe yielded 1500 ml, which equates to roughly 105 tablespoons. I'm planning on using one tablespoon per load, so that's only $0.04 a load! I had been spending up to $0.14/load with my Target brand liquid detergent. So, is it worth saving a dime a load? I think so!
