Some time ago I decided that instead of buying eco-friendly laundry detergent which can be quite pricey, I would try making my own. This idea didn’t just pop into my head, I saw a number of other blog posts about how to do it.

• From Pretty Handy Girl, I was led to a post about making liquid laundry detergent by Busy at Home
• Crafting a green world had a post about making a powdered laundry detergent

After actually reading the posts, I decided the liquid version was too time consuming and that I would make the powdered version. To start, I purchased the necessary ingredients on Amazon:

• Fels Naptha, a bar of laundry soap
• Borax
• Arm & Hammer Washing Soda

Assembling the ingredients

The next step was to find a suitable container to hold my new powdered laundry soap but I luckily had a decent sized plastic jug that orzo came in. I then got around to grating one cup of the bar soap using the smallest grater I own. Somehow I didn’t anticipate how difficult this task would be.

Trying to grate Fels Naptha

After what felt like forever as my hands quickly tired, I decided grating soap was a stupid idea. I then got out a a much larger cheese grater to make the task go faster. I put the grated soap into a cheap mini food processer to chop up the soap peels.

Soap peels in the mini processor

It took a few iterations, but I eventually got a cup of grated soap after grating about 3/4 of the bar of soap.

From there it was easy, I combined 1 cup grated soap, 1/2 cup borax, 1/2 cup washing soda and 1/4 cup baking soda. My plan is to add oxyclean to individual loads as needed. According to what I’ve read 2 tablespoons of this mixture should be sufficient for my conventional washing machine. It turns out I even had a long handled scoop left over from a nutritional supplement.

The final product

For the next batch I think I might try a different bar soap due to some mixed reviews I’ve read about Fels Naptha. I also read that opening the bar soap and letting it dry out helps with the grating process.

Anyhow, I’ve used the soap a few times and haven’t noticed a difference from store bought laundry detergent.