How to make your own zero waste laundry detergent

Today I’m gonna show you how I make our homemade natural laundry detergent. I asked you guys if you were interested in seeing my recipe and I used these zero waste natural laundry detergents for a very long time. I used it when my kids were smaller and zero waste natural laundry detergent did a great job and I loved it but when we got an Aeg washing machine I was concerned that it  might not be safe for my new machine but I’ve recently done some research and found out that it is perfectly safe for a chi washing machine not only is it safe for Aeg washing machines but it’s even more economical because you use much less of it than you do for a top loader machine so all the ingredients are natural it’s extremely economical as a matter of fact all the ingredients for this recipe I bought for under $30 and it should last a family of four for up to a year. I also recently modified my old recipe so that our laundry can smell even better than before.

I bought all of the ingredients on Amazon.

INGREDIENTS OF ZERO WASTE NATURAL LAUNDRY DETERGENT :

• Three bars of castile soap

•  Four-pound 20 Mule Team borax

• Armand & Hammer super washing soda

• Method Ginger Mango Fragrance

Three bars of castile soap and I bought the unscented because I will be adding my own scent later. You will also need a  four-pound box of 20 Mule Team borax and I know that a lot of people don’t feel comfortable using borax but I have done some research and found that it is natural and perfectly safe for kids.  I feel comfortable using it for my family the reason for the controversy is that people have equated borax with boric acid and they are not chemically the same borax is a salt that is a component in boric acid.

You’ll need a three-pound box of Arm & Hammer super washing soda. one three and a half-pound bag of Armand Hammer pure baking soda my recent modification to this recipe is adding these method fragrance boosters.

I have been a big fan of method laundry detergent and fabric softener for quite a while and my favorite scent is the ginger mango. Method laundry detergent also has lots of different scents and you can pick by yourself. I love being able to add this scent to my own laundry detergent you will also need a container for storing your zero waste laundry detergent and I prefer to use this clear glass.

I use the scoop that I use it’s actually a two-tablespoon scoop but as you’ll see we’re only going to use about half of this for an average load in an Aeg machine the first step in making the detergent is to grate the bars of soap and you can certainly do this by hand but it’s a huge time and energy . Save much of your time if you have a food processor I just use the grating attachment to grate each bar of castile soap. I always have a little bit leftover of each bar because of my food processor wouldn’t grate this part so I put those in the bottom of my food processor bowl along with the chopping blade just pulse until they are finely chopped then I pour in the method fragrance boosters and process them until they are very finely chopped as well the reason why I do this extra step of using my food processor to make sure everything is very finely ground is because I like using the laundry detergent dispenser on my machine and I want to make sure that nothing would clog it up once they are very finely ground.

You can pour them right into your container or jar so next I will add a little bit of the baking soda into my food processor so that I can process the soap flakes even further until they are very finely chopped and adding the baking soda just keeps them a powdery consistency and won’t allow them to stick to the sides or to the blade, as you can see this project is a little bit messy but I don’t mind I only need to do it once a year because this should last our family for about a year and the savings really do make it worthwhile and this detergent works as well as any other product I’ve ever tried it keeps our whites white and it keeps our colors from fading and with the addition of the method fragrance boosters our laundry smells wonderful .

This recipe makes a really big batch so it usually takes me to times filling my food processor bowl in order to process all of the soap flakes then you can add the remaining baking soda the washing soda and the borax to your jar if these ingredients are at all clumpy you might want to process them in your food processor as well and this just keeps everything super fine and like I said the reason why I like to do that is because I like to use the soap dispenser on my washing machine and this way nothing gets clogged up there are a couple of ways that you could mix it you can if you would like a little bit of a workout put it in your jar or your plastic container and gently mix it back and forth this takes a little bit of time .

Actually my favorite method is to pour it into a big Ziploc bag I find this to be the easiest way to make sure that it is thoroughly mixed together and also if there are any clumps in there it’s much easier to break them up this way and when you’re sure that all of the ingredients are thoroughly combined you can pour them into your storage container and you are ready to go if you are at all concerned about using borax then I suggest you check out the Wellness Mama calm website she does a great job of explaining why borax is perfectly safe and I am totally convinced that it’s fine so I will refer you guys there if you would like to do any further research borax can be irritating to the skin and the eyes and you would not want to ingest it in high quantities the same could be said for other natural cleaners such as vinegar, therefore a use caution and keep it out of reach of small children

If you are concerned do your research if you have a high-efficiency or a chi washing machine you will only need one tablespoon of the detergent per load if you have a top-loading machine you can use up to two heaping tablespoons we live in Texas and generally our climate is pretty dry so to avoid static I will use method fabric softener or wool dryer balls in the dryer I hope you guys enjoyed today’s video and if you did make sure to give me a thumbs up I hope you also will give this recipe a try my family loves it. it’s due to a great job on our laundry and everything smells wonderful.