I recently made my own laundry detergent. It was really easy!
Essentially, all you need is a bar of soap, washing soda, and borax. You heat up some water (kept below a boil) and shave a bar of soap into it with a butter knife. Stir until the hot water dissolves the soap. Then you add a little washing soda, a little borax, and leave over night. Come back in the morning, and you've got a whole bunch of detergent.
It's so simple that I was a bit confounded when I got to the end of the mixing part. There had to be more. A mathematical formula I had to solve? Hours of arm-numbing stirring? A baking soda explosion? I had to be missing something. I took a doubletake at the instructions. Yep, I was done. This is actually all it takes.
I don't even do laundry that often, so I halved the recipe from The Simple Dollar. Even so, I still had so much detergent that I was literally trying to give jars away to skeptical friends. They refused to take it, no doubt afraid I don't know what I'm doing.
I guess advertising companies have done a good job convincing us that there is some complicated recipe guarded by scientists that makes detergent possible. Turns out, it's not true. So why shell out 10 bucks for a jug?
If you ask me, making detergent is a win-win-win. It's easy, kind of fun, saves a pretty good sum of money, and assures that nothing weird is in your soap to irritate sensitive skin. I give it two socks out of two.
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