Video Terry Elisabeth July 13, 2018

If you are looking for the full scope of affordable, homemade, natural laundry products, you are in the right place. The full range of recipes are in a printable/downloadable format here! That way, you can have these recipes available at your fingertips whenever you’re ready for a refill. But wait … why make your own natural laundry products, you ask?

  1. It’s so cost effective! The detergent recipe costs less than $12.00 and lasts me about 14 months. I was spending about $15.00 to $20.00 every couple months on other natural detergents.
  2. It’s so much healthier to use natural ingredients for our bodies and the environment.
  3. It reduces waste! Less packaging is used because I am not using bottled detergents that containt MOSTLY WATER anyway.
  4. I only have to make the detergent every 14 months which is easy in itself to do. And, BONUS, it saves on trips to the store!

If you have seen my laundry room organization blog than you have seen that I make my own laundry detergent and since I finally ran out after 14 whole months, I thought it would be a great time to share how I make all my laundry products!

Let’s start with the laundry detergent in this range of natural laundry products. I got all of these ingredients at Walmart … even the giant container in the video which you can find here. And, I simply re-purposed a scoop from a supplement which measures about 1 Tbsp. This detergent is so concentrated that you only need 1 Tbsp per large load. Here is the whole line of natural and homemade laundry products that I use and love (remember, you can have them in an easy to download format here!):

HOMEMADE LAUNDRY DETERGENT

For a funnel, you can use a piece of paper or a chopping mat like I have in the video which is from the Dollar Tree. The key to mixing this properly is to add the ingredients in increments starting with the bar of castile soap. You will either chop it up with a knife (it’s very soft and easy to do), grate it by hand on a grater, or grate it in a food processor like I have done. Then you will add one cup each of the remaining ingredients. Then, you will mix everything by hand until it is evenly distributed and then repeat these steps to fill your desired container. For my size container, I repeated this process three times.

HOMEMADE STAIN REMOVER

I simply mix one part hydrogen peroxide with one part distilled water. It is important to keep hydrogen peroxide stored in an opaque bottle, so I just used this bottle of hydrogen peroxide from the Dollar Tree and diluted it with distilled water. You don’t even need to let it sit on a stain for very long. Just spray it on before you put in the wash!

WHITER WHITES

I just jarred up the rest of the OxiClean. Use as much or as little as you need depending on your load size.

FABRIC SOFTENER

Fill up your washing machine’s fabric softener dispenser with vinegar and lemon essential oil. The vinegar not only softens fabric, it helps prevent soap and hard water build up in your washing machine.

HOMEMADE DRYER BALLS

  • 3 balls of aluminum foil

Crumple up 3 to 4 feet of foil for each ball starting at one end and tightly forming into a ball. Toss them in the dryer with each load.

LAUNDRY CARE ROUTINE

  • For all loads, whether they are whites, brights, darks, or delicates, you just need to add 1 Tbsp of the laundry detergent per large load.
  • For whites, depending on the load size, you can use 2-4 Tbsp of oxygen booster, but you really don’t need to. I just like to use it for my white bedding for extra brightening.
  • For fabric softener, I fill the fabric softener dispenser with vinegar and a few drops of lemon essential oil. The vinegar odor does not linger.
  • And, for the dryer, to reduce static cling and speed up drying time, I use foil balls. They generate heat and keep the laundry separated helping it to dry more quickly. After one use, they look like those trending Japanese foil balls that people so tirelessly tried to make on YouTube (it’s so easy and they actually are useful after all). You can reuse them over and over again.

You will find that these natural laundry products are surprisingly effective and so very inexpensive! Have you gotten my free organizing and financial resources yet (including these recipes)? Grab them here! If you haven’t seen my laundry room organization video and blog post, click here. And click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel. Don’t forget to click the notification bell so that you never miss another organizing video.

Happy Organizing!

Terry Elisabeth, Creator of “Terry Elisabeth’s Lifetime Budgeting System” &
Author of “How to Organize Any Space in 7 Simplified Steps“