Allison Hardy's Not-So-Secret Diary: DIY Powder Laundry Detergent

We have been making this for almost 3 years now. The cost is under $20 and depending on how much laundry you wash it can last anywhere from 4-10 months. We do on average a load a day and it lasts our family 6-8 months. I purchased a 3 Gallon glass jar from Walmart for $10 to store the detergent.

Here is what you will need:

1 4lb 12 oz box Borax (2.15 kg or 76 oz) found in the detergent aisle
1 4lb box Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (1.81 kg) found in the cooking aisle
1 box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda 55 oz (3 lb 7 oz) found in the detergent aisle
3 bars of Fels-Naptha soap, found in the detergent aisle
2 small containers or 1 large container of Oxi Clean (try to get about 3.5 lbs total) found in the detergent aisle
a food processor

**All of these items can be purchased at Wal-mart; I went to several stores searching for the ingredients when I first started making this, and want to save you from having to do the same**

Step 1

Start out by lining a box or a bucket with a trash bag. I used the bucket we use to wash our car, it was the perfect size. Dump the Borax, Baking Soda, Washing Soda, and Oxi Clean into this bucket. If you don't want a layer of the powder on the items around where you dump you might want to dump these into the bucket while standing outside.

Step 2

Using a cutting board and knife cut the bars of Fels Naptha soap into 1/2-1 inch blocks and place in a bowl. I know this part seems time consuming but the smaller the blocks the better. (Your house will start to smell really good at this point)

Step 3

Place a few heaping scoops of the powder mixture in first then add a few blocks of the Fels Naptha into the food processor. This step is to grind up the soap. I add some powder mixture in this step to keep the soap from sticking to the blades in the processor. The longer you run the processor the finer the soap will be. Our food processor allows for it to stay running and i can just keep adding the Fels Naptha through the top. If yours doesn't once this batch is blended up you can remove it and keep repeating this step until all of the Fels Naptha is grinded up.

Step 4

Add your detergent to your Jar or other container where you will be storing it. You can stir the completed mixture before or after you place it in your jar. I mix it first because the bucket has more room than the jar and I just make a huge mess. For this final step if you don't want a layer of powder soap on everything I would dump the final mixture form your bucket into the jar while you are outside. Trust me, I didn't do this the first time and I had powder on everything in the kitchen.