DIY: Homemade Laundry Detergent

Cody and I have been wanting to make our own laundry detergent for a while now. We finally got around to doing it recently and I wanted to share how easy it is to make. It will save you tons of money in the long run. The start up cost for us was around $20. That is for everything, including a bucket to store the detergent in. After you have used up your first batch, you will only have to buy a bar of soap the next time. We got our recipe from Tip Nut. They have multiple recipes on their website for making laundry detergent. We selected recipe number one. Here is a step by step look into how we made ours...



Before putting in the melted soap, we added about 18 drops of the scented oil.
Kara's cat was very interested in what we were doing. He is such a cutie.


Above you can see that your detergent will become a gel. This is how it's supposed to be.
You need to keep your laundry detergent covered while storing it in your bucket.
This is why we bought a bucket that came with a lid.
On a side note, I am upset that I bought Arm & Hammer washing soda because they test on animals. I did not know this till my sweet blogger friend Aubrey told me recently. (Thanks Aubrey.) When you think of baking soda, your brain automatically thinks of that orange box that says Arm & Hammer on it. So if you want this to be a vegan (not animal tested product) you can just buy another brand of baking soda. You can actually bake baking soda to make it into washing soda. (link HERE.) Also Aubrey has a great recipe for laundry detergent on her blog that you can also check out HERE. We had a blast doing this and plan to make bar soaps and body washes as well. I like that there are options for everyone.

I am also fed up with buying animal tested products by accident. It angers me.
PETA has a list of companies who DO NOT animal test on their website HERE if you are interested.