How To: Make Your Own {Green} Laundry Detergent

This post is from the Slow Your Home archives. And because it's too good for you to miss, it's making another appearance...

One of my sisters gave me a bottle of her homemade laundry detergent a couple of months back and I was super impressed with how well it worked. I've been meaning to share her recipe ever since (hope you don't mind, Manda!)It's really easy and these quantities will make you 8 litres of liquid, so feel free to halve everything if you're not in need of so much. Although it does keep well over time.

You'll need:

1 cup Lux soap flakes1/2 cup Lectric wsahing soda1/2 cup boraxwatera large bucket4 x 2-litre bottles or 5-6 empty vinegar bottles (try 2L milk bottles - as long as they're well cleaned)

1.  Using an old saucepan heat 4 cups of water with the Lux and stir until completely melted.2.  Add washing soda and borax to mix and stir until dissolved.3.  Add 4 cups of hot water to large bucket.4.  Add the Lux, water, washing soda and borax mix to large bucket and stir. 5.  Top the mix up with cold water till you reach 8L.6.  Distribute mix amongst your storage bottles leaving enough room at top so you can shake your liquid. (The mix will settle and go claggy so make sure you give it a good shake before you use it.)

Tips for your homemade laundry detergent:

• For a front-loader, use around 3/4 cup per wash. A top loader may use a bit more. 

• In the fabric softener dispenser I always put 1/2 cup vinegar as a rinse agent/softener, and you can also add up to 10 drops of essential oil, to gently fragrance your wash.

• Still pretreat stains in the usual way