Pinterest Weekly: DIY Laundry Detergent

     I have never had an overwhelming urge to make my own cleaning products. I'm just not one of those people. I think it's cool when others do it and have bought my fair share of homemade bath products at craft fairs and market days. Mostly, I think that it's more effort than it's worth. I don't mind paying for the convenience.

     But, when I saw a recipe for DIY Laundry Detergent on SlapDashMom, I just had to try it. It's only 3 ingredients and it just seemed super simple.

     So, I headed to the store to get my ingredients. Before we left, I told my sister, that I wanted Zest, Lever 2000 or something similar. When we got there, a 3 pack of Zest was $1.98 with a $1 off in-store coupon. So, that's what we got. We got home, and I decided that I would increase the recipe to use all three bars of soap. We don't use bar soap so it was easier to add it to the recipe and get it out of the way.

     It was as easy as SlapDashMom's directions made it seem and it took us less than 30 minutes to make. One thing I didn't count on was how much space the soap would take up once it was grated. With increasing the recipe to account for a third bar, my finished laundry detergent was about 8.25 cups.

My laundry detergent

     Total, it cost me about $3.15 to make the laundry detergent. Since you only use 1 tablespoons per load, it'll wash 132 loads. That means that it's only $0.03 per load! When we were buy laundry detergent at the store, we pay $0.13 per load. I know that $0.10 per load doesn't seem like a lot of savings. But, when you think about the fact that, according to the EPA, the average American family does 400 loads of laundry per year. That's saving $40 per year on something that you're going to need, no matter what.

     Be sure to check out SlapDashMom's recipe for complete instructions!