1 bar of Fels-Naptha Laundry Soap
1/2 box of borax
1/2 box of Washing Soda
1/2 box of Baking Soda
1/2 box of Dirty Jobs Complete Heavty-Duty Stain Remover (I had a $2 off coupon so I used this instead of Oxiclean, but I figured they were both Oxygen powered laundry additives, so why not)
None of this is very specific, I know but I didn't want to make a huge batch which would have been the whole box of each and two bars of soap. I wanted to try this out a bit first.
I shredded the Fels-Naptha bar with a fine cheese grater and combined the powder ingredients. You should know that when you are pouring Borax, it will create a cloud and leave a fine dust on the nearby surfaces, so be careful that you don't have any food around and that you can easily wipe all the surfaces. I mean it's all natural and I've used it to prevent water spots in a dishwasher for a couple years, but that doesn't mean I want my toddler eating it straight!
Now at first when I was grating the soap and even after I combined everything, I was concerned about the smell. All the posts I had seen so far talked about how mild smelling it was and one poster even added Purex Crystals to make it smell more. I am sensitive to smells and get headaches easily and thought this might be too smelly for me, but once it was in the wash, the laundry had a very mild scent and really just smelled clean.
My toddler graciously decided to throughly soil a few of her outfits for me and this detergent did well against anything she threw at it. I did learn that if you do large loads, you do need to use two TBSPs or even three if you have some stains you need to get. I have no idea how many load this will do, but it's every bit as much as the large boxes of Tide that cost $20 and I use less in each load, so I'm sure it will last longer. The best part is it cost me only $11.53 for all the supplies and I still have enough to make another batch. I'd estimate that this will save me at least $50 in the long haul, if not more.
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