Homemade laundry detergent

Hello!

I'm super excited about this. Recently I made my own laundry detergent and it was fantastic! It smells so good, clean really well and will probably last us about a year.

Here's what I used.

1 (4 lb 12 oz) box of Borax
1 (3lb 7oz) box of Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda
2 bars Fels Naptha
1 (4lb) box Baking soda
1 (3lb) container of Oxy-clean (this is optional)
83 oz Purex Crystals (again, this is optional and I bought 1 big size and 1 little size)

Fist you have to grate the Fels Naptha with a cheese grater. Or you can chop it up with a food processor. I was  using a cheese grater on the medium setting, but the soap kept clogging up the grater. I had to keep stopping and scrapping all the soap off. So since I'm kind of lazy I went to the largest size for grating. That worked much better, but the chunks of soap were of course bigger. But I haven't had any problems with it not dissolving yet. Next time I'll use my food processor. So then mix everything else together. I recommend doing this outside since it does smell very strong. Even if you do exclude the crystals it would be better outside since Borax does have a smell and all the ingredients are very powdery so it can puff up in your face while you're mixing it. I tried mixing it with a spoon, but I didn't feel that mixed well, so I just did it with my hands. This makes a ton so you'll need a big container to mix it up in.

So once everything is mixed, I put it in a smaller container to make it easier when I use it. I used the Oxy-clean container.

Ok so here's the beauty of doing this. The whole thing cost me about 28 dollars. This will easily last us a year, since I normally only do about 2 or 3 loads of laundry per week. The second thing that totally makes this worth it- you only need 1 or 2 tablespoons per load. Yes true story. I was amazed. I use the Oxy-clean scoop and it's perfect.
Here's a picture to see how little you need. Teeny tiny scoop. =D