It is very easy to make your own laundry detergent as a way to supplement or replace existing stocks and have some supplies on hand during a SHTF situation. While you can use dish or bar soap as well as borax and water to clean clothes, having a concentrated soap on hand can minimize the amount of effort it takes to do laundry. There are no harsh chemicals, and all you need is some basic and very affordable ingredients. Learn how easy it is to make your own batch, and discover a very inexpensive and convenient way to keep your clothes clean and fresh.
Preparing and Mixing the Ingredients
You want to use a five gallon bucket whenever possible, because it gives you enough room to combine and mix the ingredients without accidentally spilling them. Take a large bar of soap, preferably one without a lot of additives such as aloe, coconut oil or heavy perfumes. If you don’t have a large bar, then you should use between four to six smaller bars of soap to get the right proportions in the mixture.
Take a cheese grater and grate the soap along the side that has the holes on it, and let the pieces fall into the bucket. Don’t slice the soap or it will be hard to dissolve, and using it on the fine grate will cause it to get gummed up.
Add one gallon of boiling water to the bucket, and stir in the soap flakes until they dissolve with a wooden spoon or a paint stirrer. Once the soap has dissolved, add another gallon of hot water and continue to stir. Add one final gallon to the mix, stir until the color and consistency of the water is uniform and then let cool and rest overnight.
Add two more gallons of boiling water the next day, and stir again. You may see a frothy and bubbly head on the mixture from the soap. Don’t worry. You can either scrape it off or let it settle and disappear before continuing on with the next step. Measure a cup of borax and stir it into the mixture once the bubbles have dissipated If you are planning on using this detergent on a lot of whites, add another half to ¾ cups of borax. Otherwise, one cup is more than enough to effectively clean an average load of laundry.
Stir the mixture for about three to five minutes to ensure that the borax has been dissolved, and then let it rest for a couple of days. You will notice that the mixture will begin to shrink and solidify as water evaporates. It may take up to three days before enough moisture has evaporated to remove and store the mixture. It should have the consistency of regular laundry soap, perhaps a tad bit thicker. This process is not all that different from reducing a sauce into a thicker gravy when cooking. The soap congeals and sets into a condensed product.
All you need to do now is store it in a plastic or glass container until it is ready to be used. Remember that this is a concentrated product, which means that one scoop should be more than enough to do an average load. If you are dealing with really dirty clothes, sprinkle a dash or two of borax into the water as you add the soap for some more cleaning power.
This recipe is basically the same that most commercial-grade laundry detergents use, without their additives. It is safe and effective, and it can make doing laundry a lot easier in the field or when you are in a situation where you can’t buy your own.
