Combine two cups of borax, two cups of washing soda, and one cup of soap flakes. Stir well with a wooden spoon to mix and promptly seal the container.
DIY cleaners offer control over ingredients and cost savings, but when it comes to homemade laundry detergent, experts say to skip it.
Epsom salt is another name for magnesium sulphate. When added to your laundry load, the magnesium will increase the hardness of the water and therefore, your clothes. Hard water not only makes your clothes stiff and scratchy, it also stops soap being as effective.
In your washing machine, borax helps absorb dirt. In your kitchen and bathroom, it's great for cleaning rust, grout, and even mold and mildew. Borax helps laundry smell better and is also extremely effective at fighting pet urine odor because it combats the ammonia.
Fill your 5 gallon bucket half full with HOT tap water, add melted soap, washing soda, and borax and stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill the bucket the rest of the way to the top with hot water, stir, cover, and let sit overnight to thicken.
By paying only 1 cent per load (not including equipment costs), homemade laundry detergent is at least 10 times cheaper than buying cheap store-bought laundry detergent (11 cents a load).
Answer : Detergent is an emulsifying agent with the chemical formula C18H29NaO3S and the scientific name sodium dodecyl benzene sulphonate.
Though dish soap is great as a stain pretreatment option, it's not meant for direct use in a laundry washing machine. That's because dish soaps are uniquely formulated to break up grease and stuck-on food particles with foamy suds—something you don't want to happen in your washing machine.
Baking soda makes a great laundry product because of its mild alkali qualities. Dirt and grease are easily dissolved, while clothes are softened. It is especially helpful in homes with hard water because it will clean clothes better, and prevent the stain buildup that can come with hard water.
If you're not using chlorine bleach, that 1/2 cup of baking soda will boost the performance of your detergent. This is especially important if you have hard water or use a value detergent. The dry baking soda should be added to the empty washer tub before dirty laundry is added.
DIY laundry 'detergent' can RUIN your washing machine:
This can cause in mold or mildew to grow inside your machine. And, this is the real problem I have with homemade laundry 'detergents' – they will void your machines warranty.
For this reason, borax makes for a decent laundry detergent substitute. While borax is a great sidekick to detergent in small amounts, it can be used to loosen stains and brighten up clothing on its own.
Baking soda
Baking soda, aka sodium bicarbonate, is a naturally occurring substance that can do wonders for your laundry. Having long been used as an eco-friendly alternative to laundry detergent and in other cleaning processes around the home, baking soda is the obvious choice when you've run out of laundry detergent.
Regular bar soap can be grated and combined with Borax to create a very effective laundry detergent alternative. Here's how to do it: Using a butter knife, a spoon or even a cheese grater, grate about a cup of bar soap. Add the grated bar soap to ½ cup of borax and ½ cup of washing soda.
While store-bought detergents contain chemical ingredients to assist with rapid and effective rinsing, homemade detergents are free of these chemicals. It's always good to use fewer chemicals on your clothes, but that means an extra rinse cycle is sometimes needed if you're using homemade detergent.