If you can make laundry detergent for pennies..

[brenda67]

since I just started making the Duggars recipe for a total of $8.00 that will last me YEARS.. I do not know why anyone would waste their money buying commercial detergent? Please tell me why you would or wouldn't use the homemade version if you knew it could save you hundred's of dollars in your lifetime!

[ladykemma2]

because the water here is so hard you have to chip it out of the tap. soap-based laundry detergent doesn't work.

i use the 64 ounce ajax lemon dishwashing liquid for about $3.00 per month.

[Neeley]

Hello. My name is Leigh and I am a Gain-a-holic.

Seriously, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the way Gain smells. When DH does laundry it makes the entire house smell sooo good. And with 3 dogs, 2 cats and teenagers, that is no small job.

If I were not addicted to Gain, I would switch over. But, I gotta have my daily Gain fix.

[BeachBaby]

I've used the homemade soap before but it just didn't get the clothes as clean and they had a sour smell. I even bought fabric softener to try and help and nothing seemed to work.

I buy Tide now love the way it smells, always get it on sale with a coupon and use about 1/3 of what the bottle says.

[greekislandgirl]

I don't because they don't sell the ingredients here (at least, in the 15 times I've tried to find them, they haven't). We also have tremendously hard water but I use a special additive to dissolve the salts. I got it on sale, thank goodness.

I save money by only doing one load of laundry/week.

[stinkbug]

My dd used to make and use it....the clothes always looked dingy and smelled musty (3 boys). I personally think Gain smells like moth balls and HATE the smell of it. With just dh and I, I use whatever is on sale.....only about 4 loads a week, so it's not an expense I worry about.

[savvy_sniper]

I tried the homemade stuff and my clothes were dingy and it left a film in my washer. I now buy Charlies soap. I started out buying a small quantity to check it out. It worked well and has no fragrance added. I recently bought a big bucket on Amazon, got free shipping and used my accumulated rewards points from a credit card. I paid a little over $40 and it will last me over 4 years!

[Spirit Deer]

Same results here. It's an idea I've really tried to like but can't. We have hard water, and once the residue left by commercial detergents is gone, our clothes smelled bad, were very dingy, and just weren't clean. Also, our laundry 'room' is a hallway so we don't have storage space for gallons of HM detergent and really don't see the need for such huge batches at one time anyway.

It's just the two of us so our annual costs for detergent are negligible. We just buy the cheap stuff and a bottle lasts us for ages. It's not an expense worth thinking about for us.

[Starlight9803]

I also tried the homemade, both powdered and liquid versions, and our clothes didn't come very clean either. Guess it is our water, because my grandmother uses it and it works well for her. It left ours dingy and not really clean. I just use cheap Xtra detergent now, with some generic oxy clean in with the really grimy stuff, and everything comes out great.

[Telephus44]

I've never tried making it, but I buy cheap Xtra detergent. It goes on sale for $1.50 at CVS and I usually have some ECB's so I ended up probably averaging $.50 a bottle. I use 2-3 bottles a year, so I can't imagine that the savings is worth it for me. Plus every recipe I've seen requires Fel Naptha or some other odd ingredient I'd have to really go out of my way to get.

[FrabjousDay]

Because it didn't leave my clothing clean, looking good or smelling nice. Purex works well for me and is fairly inexpensive (especially when on sale or with coupon). I'm also able to use far less than the recommended amount with good results.

[Ceashels]

I used hm for the better part of a year but it eventually started to make my cloths smell sour. The last time I used it was for our neighbors (heavy smokers) clothes and it left the cigarette smell in the clothes. So I switched to Charlie's Soap for everything.

It did save us money but I would perhaps try to wash things every second or third time in store bought detergent for a good cleaning.

There is a post in FV about the difference between soap and detergent.... I'll look for it to repost here.

[Ceashels]

What is the Most powerful Laundry Soap ... this link is to the thread where the following came from:

If you break down the chemistry, "powerful" would be based on many things in detergents, but mostly phosphates. Phosphates have been removed from detergents (by law), therefore, they no longer perform in hard water as well as they did when they contained phosphates. Detergent formulas are changing all the time to include new chemicals - this link may be helpful:

http://www.cleaning101.com/cleaning/chemistry/

You can boost your detergent performance by adding phosphate-containing Cascade Dishwasher Detergent - especially in the whites load (Cascade also has enzymes in it for cleaning those organic stains like grass stains and mustard), or add STPP (Sodium tripolyphosphate) - That Home Site! Ask The Experts. STPP will stop the white "dust" from minerals in hard water from settling on your dark clothing - which is a hard water issue, not the power of the detergent. Mexican detergents, like Roma (I've seen it at Big Lots), Ariel, and FOCA still contain phosphates. So if you have really hard water, a phosphate-containing detergent may be the better choice.

Naptha (which was the cleaning solvent in bars of Fels Naptha) was an excellent cleaner, but it's since been removed from laundry products because it may be carcinogenic. You can still purchase naptha as an industrial cleaning solvent.

All detergents lose their "power" in cold water, even the detergents designed to be used in cold water. Detergent manufacturers and care labels define cold water as 80-85°F. If the temperature of water is too cold for your hands, the detergent will NOT activate and clean effectively. Cold water below 65°F is NOT recommended for washing. Even here in central Kansas, our cold water is 72° today, and it's MUCH colder for most of the year. Newer washing machines will actually add hot water even on the COLD WATER WASH cycle in order to keep the cold water from being too cold for detergents.

Hot water is also a key to clean clothes, that has been poo-pooed of late. Hot water is suggested for removing dirt from heavily soiled items - detergent alone may not be enough.

Other old-fashioned laundry aids are pre-treating and soaking. Once again, detergent alone may not be enough for heavily soiled clothing.

Depending on how hard your water is, you may need to use more detergent, as well as hot water, if body oil and dirt aren't coming out using the regular amount. So the correct amount of detergent can be a key to the "power".

And, another link to some information:
Do It Yourself Laundry Detergent on the news

Cleaning clothes is such a personal thing because of so many personal variables (pets, kids, dirt level, type of clothing/fabrics, front-loader/top loader, etc.), and no one soap/detergent will work for everyone due to water hardness and the type of washing machine.

With my hard water, I could use homemade laundry mixtures for about 3-months before the whites got dingy from soap scum build-up and I would have to use commercial detergents for awhile. Then I discovered if I added Cascade Dishwasher Detergent to the whites (along with homemade laundry soap), the phosphates, enzymes and bleaches in Cascade helped to clean laundry better. Phosphates, which worked very well for cleaning laundry in hard water, has been removed from detergents AND now it's been removed from Cascade. Phosphate builders would tie up hardness minerals and hold them in solution so they could be rinsed away. So now detergents contain a high concentration of surfactants to aid in removing hard water minerals.

Soap scum build-up will also cause your clothes to wear out faster. If you have stiff clothes when you dry them on a clothes line, then you probably have soap scum build up in the fabrics.

Modern detergents include things like corrosion inhibitors, enzymes, optical brighteners, surfactants and chelating agents that are absent in homemade mixtures.

ZOTE is a good choice in homemade mixtures. ZOTE is designed for laundry, is dirt cheap (pun intended), has a nice citronella scent, and it contains optical brighteners to help clothes look white. You can use nearly any kind of bar soap, including bath bars, for these mixtures. The fats in them tend to cause havoc. These fats can cling to the fibers of the clothing and can go rancid, especially if you store off-season clothing, and make the clothes smell "sour".

Fels Naptha is also a popular laundry bar choice. Stoddard solvent was the active ingredients in Fels Naptha that made it clean so well, but it's been removed because it can - "affect your nervous system and cause dizziness, headaches, or a prolonged reaction time. It can also cause eye, skin, or throat irritation". Naptha in Fels Naptha is a nerve toxin and the bars do contain petrochemicals. So don't think it's all "natural". I also think it smells terrible.

I made a dry mixture, rather than the liquid, because of limited space in the laundry room, but they all take the same ingredients - you'll find different ratios of those ingredients, however:

1/2 bar of ZOTE (grated)
2 c. Borax
2 c. Washing Soda

I eventually started adding Cascade or OxyClean to the homemade mixture, so the price was going up in order to get clothes clean.

Homemade mixtures work best in the hottest water that your clothes can handle. Even Martha Stewart advises, "The best way to retain whiteness is to launder white items together in the hottest water the fabric will tolerate (water that is at least 120°F is the most effective at removing soil).

If you have a septic system, be aware that Borax, a common ingredient in homemade laundry mixtures, can build-up in your septic tank. According to one source in my files, Borax is NOT bio-degradable.

If you have a front-loader or HE washer, I'd suggest you contact the help-line before using homemade laundry mixtures in it. I've heard that using it can actually void your warranty, as Pemberleyan pointed out. There is such a problem in FL with mold, and the ingredients in the bar soap you use in homemade laundry mixtures contain fats that can contribute to "gunk" building up in your machine.

LIANE - You might consider Charlie's Soap, instead of homemade mixtures, if you have allergies. My hubby has a lot of problems with soap/detergents, and I just love this detergent. Safe, Non toxic, Biodegradable Soap - Charlie's Soap

When I purchased the 5-gallon bucket of Charlie's Soap and started using it Nov. 2007, it cost me approx. 9-cents per load. NO softener! In fact, they suggest you NOT use softener. I'm still on the first bucket.

I did not check to see if the links within the quotes were still functional. You might need to open the links. Both threads offer a lot of input.

[nuisance26]

~I used just homemade for over a year until I started noticing a mustiness to my whites. So I started buying $1.50 Fab detergent to use in rotation with the homemade and that worked to fix the problem. I've spent $11 on laundry making supplies and $6 on premade detergent over the last 2 years. And I give a bottle of homemade detergent to my mom every month as well.
I was only spending $8 a year on cheap detergent before homemade so I don't save very much money. My reasons for making it are about self-sufficiency and less waste of resources manufacturing, transporting and disposing of jugs of soapy water.
As far as the space issue goes, the recipe can be scaled down. I make just 1/5 of the recipe at a time, although I grate all my soap at one time and put the measured recipe amounts in baggies. I have just a laundry closet too and 5 gallons at a time is just too bulky.
And I'm another one who doesn't like the smell of Gain. It smells like Raid to me. I don't like my clothes to smell of anything, except maybe the fresh air of line-drying. ~

[HappyMama]

I won't get into the drama here that usually accompanies the homemade laundry soap on this board . LOL

But do have to say congratulations on saving all the money. I love homemade soap, as I don't want to deal with some questionable additives ( you can see my old posts) .
I make with fragrances, everyone loves , works perfect for me. I have a HE and never a problem, have hard water ( salt is added to mine and never a problem) , they turn white not dingy.

I do make organic and just don't flame me folks if you don't make and buy congratulations to you as well for buying what you want.

I do have to note I have sold large amounts before, in the Natural Health field. Never any complaints , everyone loves and wants orders sometimes just didn't have the time to make for them . Mine is a dry recipe, think the ones sold high end luxury stores in small containers. Lilac is my families favorite smells like fresh air.