homemade powdered laundry detergent

Many people have sensitive skin and one of the best things you can do is make your own laundry detergent! It's really easy (and more importantly super cheap!) do to it. All you need is a bar of soap (I use Fels Naptha, but I've heard of people using other soaps), Borax, and washing soda which can all be found in the laundry aisle of most stores. I typically find it out of the way on the bottom or very top shelves.

Ingredients:
1/2 bar of soap *
1 cup borax

1 cup washing soda

*if that doesn't get your clothes clean enough, try using the whole bar

Grate the soap into fine pieces and combine with the Borax and washing soda. Store in an air tight container. Use 1 tbsp of detergent for your average full load of laundry (adjust accordingly for different sizes and dirtiness).

How to: 

1. Combine all your ingredients and supplies. I use a food processor to mix the ingredients and a fine microplane grater for the soap. You don't need to use fancy containers to store the Borax and washing soda, but you do need to be careful because air will cause them to clump up. 

2. Cut the bar of soap in half. (like I said earlier, if half the bar doesn't get your clothes clean enough use the full bar)

3. Grate the soap. I find it easiest to just grate it into the food processor. If you don't have a food processor a blender will do. In fact you probably don't even *really* need to use one, I just like the way it really mixes everything. 

4.  In my head it helps the mixing process if I add half of each ingredient and then add the other half. I also use a quarter cup to measure two scoops of Borax and two scoops of washing soda. Another reason I love these containers is how wide they are and easy to scoop from. 

5.  Add the other half of the ingredients. The soap gets really hard to grate towards the end. 

6. Now this is where the food processor really comes in handy. I just use the pulse button a few times until it looks nice and even. 

7. Pour it into an airtight container and, just for good measure, give it a good shake or two. 

8. I use my super awesome glass cleaner to clean the food processor. 

9. Tackle that mountain of laundry! In this particular case, I'm doing a smallish load of lightly soiled clothes (clothes that got worn but not actually dirty) so I'm only using roughly half a tablespoon.