Recent screening of common laundry detergents revealed high levels of a variety of harmful chemicals in even those "free and gentle" detergents. Thanks Tide... Even eco-friendly, all natural detergents have questionable ingredients. The harder it is for me to determine the actual ingredients in something, the more likely it is there is something ridiculous in it. Just because something is derived from a plant does not mean it is okay! Plants can be highly toxic. The seventh generation detergent has so many questionable ingredients in it and many of them are derived from plant oils. There is very little know about these ingredients because they haven't been extensively used for long periods of time.
I am a huge fan of DiY. The Husband and Big Boy both have sensitive skin so I set out to make my own detergent that works and is what I would describe as safe and doesn't irritate their skin. I wanted simple, straight forward ingredients. I spent a lot of time looking at every chemical listed in each of these ingredients and didn't find anything questionable. I even looked up the MSDS's for every single one. The fels naptha does have artificial fragrances though but since it is such a good stain remover compared to other options (kids = stains), I included it. I opted to make the dry detergent b/c it is easier and said to work better. This recipe is safe for HE machines.
My recipe:
1 - 4 lb 12 oz box of Borax
1 - 3 lb 7 oz box of Arm and Hammer Washing Soda
1 - 4 lb box of baking soda
1/2 - of a large bucket of Sun Oxygen laundry booster
3 - bars fels naptha laundry soap
Total for all ingredients: $13.65
I used my food processor to pulverize the bars of soap (it needs to be small) and then mixed everything in a 5 G bucket. It took all of 5 minutes to make this detergent. I stored it in 2, 1 gallon screw top containers. You use 1 tbsp for small loads and 2 tbsp for large loads. My sun oxygen cleaner came with a 2 tbsp scoop so I threw that in the container of laundry soap and voila!
This recipe makes enough for 256 large loads or 512 small loads. Comparing this to the Tide Free and Gentle which is ~$12 for 32 large loads, I am paying 1/10 this amount for my DiY detergent.
I have been using the detergent for a month and I am giving it rave reviews!!! My laundry is soft and smells fresh and clean and even old, oily food stains on the kids clothes came out. The detergent is 1/10 the price of my old detergent and it gets out old stains my other detergent left behind!! It also doesn't bother the boy's skin at all.
This recipe will make 2 of these.
