Chris and I watched a documentary on Netflix called Chemerical about a year ago. The documentary is definitely worth watching if you have any interest in living a more natural life. The doc takes an average American family and shows them how to change their cleaning and beauty routine from chemical ridden corporate products to all natural homemade products.
After watching this movie Chris and I decided we also wanted to switch to making all of our own natural products. We would take a year to completely switch over, replace our chemically created store bought products little by little as we ran out. After roughly about a year we are about 90% all natural and still working towards our 100% goal. So far in our switch Chris and I have only caved once each: I bought regular dish soap (I have yet to discover a recipe I like–keep an eye for the search in the future) and Chris bought hair styling product. I make most of the products and he didn’t feel like waiting for me to figure out a recipe and make it. I feel good about only have two small failures. It has been an extremely easy process!
I am running low on many products at the moment so keep posted for other recipes, but today I am going to share the recipe I use for laundry soap.
To make this recipe you will need:
- A container to keep the soap in (If you use tupperware you will not want to use it for food again, because the Fels Naptha scent stays in the plastic and your food will have a soapy taste).
- A measuring cup
- A grater
- 2 bars of Fels Naptha (You can buy this at most grocery stores in the laundry aisle)
- 2 cups Borax (also in the laundry aisle)
- 2 cups Super Washing Soda (this is usually found in the cleaning aisles)
Before I go into the process of making the soap, I recently have come across confusing information about whether Borax is safe or not. I found an article claiming that Borax isn’t as natural and safe as we might think. Well, I will direct you to Crunchy Betty, it is a blog I read from time to time about natural living. The article linked above does a great job of outlining the facts about Borax, allowing you to make your own decision if you feel comfortable using Borax.
For me I can’t see Borax as being any worse than the laundry soap I was using before I switched to natural products. Also I don’t ever plan on ingesting large amounts of Borax and it seems that this is were it might be considered unsafe. So make your own decision, but I am comfortable using Borax in my products.
One more tid bit, you can find other recipes online for a liquid version of this very same recipe. It depends on if you like powder or liquid, before switching I was a liquid girl, now I prefer the powder. I have made the liquid version of this recipe, it involves cooking and takes longer to make. It can make quite a mess and I don’t see any benefits over the powder. So I always make powder.
So finally, to the recipe!
First measure two cups of Borax and two cups of Super Washing Soda and add them into your container.
Then grab your adorable bar of Fels Naptha and your grater. I recommend if you can afford to buy a grater just for your soap and have a separate grater for cooking, it can be a pain to clean and again the scent of the Fels Naptha is rather strong and long lasting (which is great for the detergent).
The next step is to grate your two bars of Fels Naptha into you Borax and Washing Soda mixture. 
This can take a while because I like to use the smallest holes on the grater to make a more consistent powder mixture. I will admit sometimes I gave in and use the larger holes, because my arms get tired. You may see that in the photo….
Once you are finished grating mix it all together and you are finished. Use two tablespoons per load of laundry.
This is my favorite switch I have made. Washing Soda and Borax average about $3.50 a box, I can make about 3 batches with one box of each. The bar of Fels Naptha averages about $1. That is a little over 4 dollars per batch, a batch last me several months. I was paying about $10 or more for a bottle of detergent that would last a few months. This recipe is so affordable and leaves my clothes smelling great. I absolutely love using this detergent, I can feel good about being natural, good for me, good for the environment, and good for my wallet!
Sustainability: Failures and Victories 