Homemade Natural Laundry Powder

UPDATE March 2019: I've been using my laundry powder recipe for almost a year now & still loving it!
I've tweaked the recipe just slightly since first posting this blog - recipe below is updated for you.

I have begun making our own natural homemade laundry powder! You might be wondering why on earth I would want to add yet another 'chore' to an already busy life right?! Well there's a couple of reasons behind it which I'm going to share in this blog post, plus my recipe if you want to have a go making your own homemade natural laundry powder!

I’ve always been a bit of a label reader, interested about what's in the stuff I'm buying; from ingredients in food products to what garments are made of. But recently I've really opened my eyes to what we’re bringing into our home and our diets on a day-to-day basis. Knowledge is power and I've been soaking up documentaries, books and web articles on the topic. From processed foods to the chemicals in our cleaning products - there are so many things in supermarket products that I can’t even pronounce and have no actual idea what they are! 

Here's the ingredient list for a supermarket shelf brand of laundry powder: 5% to 15% Anionic surfactants, Oxygen-based bleaching agents; < 5%  -Enzymes, Nonionic surfactants, Optical brighteners, Perfume, Phosphonates, Polycarboxylates, Soap, Zeolites, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Citronellol, Eugenol, Limonene.

Now just from my own limited research and knowledge I know that synthetic perfumes, phosphates, optical brighteners and some surfactants are hazardous to our health and are common causes of skin irritation. Making our own laundry powder allows me to know exactly what is being used to wash the clothes and linen that touch our skin every day. And skin is the largest organ of our body so I think that's important.

Another reason for the switch to homemade laundry powder is that we’re consciously trying to minimise in our household how much single-use plastics we’re consuming. We don’t tend to think about all the products we buy like laundry detergent or fabric softener when we discuss the world's plastic issue. The first thing that comes to mind is plastic bags and water bottles, but all our cleaning products tend to come in plastic containers these days that are just thrown out when they’re finished to make room for a fresh one. 

And I've worked out that making my own homemade natural laundry powder is going to cost about 40c per load. Which is on par with the eco-brand laundry detergent we were using.

YOU WILL NEED:

• One bar of natural soap (like Castile, coconut soap or goats milk soap)
• 2 cups of baking soda
• 2 cups of washing soda (try to get the finer powdered form rather than the big chunky crystals if you can)
• 1/2 cup of borax
• 10-20 drops of pure essential oil (optional). (I've used Lavender, Grapefruit & Geranium and also Eucalyptus & Lime before).
  
  
• A food processor
• Grater
• Airtight container for storage.

HOW TO MAKE: 

1. Grate bar of soap. This is the time consuming part. I guess you could use the grater attachment on your food processor if you wanted to. 
2. Add the grated soap, baking soda, washing soda and essential oil to your food processor bowl (you can add the borax now too if you want, otherwise leave until step 3). Blitz on high for a minute or two until the soap is really fine and mixture resembles laundry powder. 
3. Pour mixture into an airtight container, add the borax and mix through well. 
   
   Job done. Makes about 4-5 cups and you use approx. 2 tablespoons per load of washing. If doing cold washes or you find your washing machine tends to leave powdery residue you can simply dissolve 2 tablespoons of the laundry powder in a cup of hot water before adding to your washing. 

Grating the soap is the intensive part, but all up it only took me 10 minutes to make a batch of laundry powder which is going to last me about 40 washes. And you could easily make double the mixture in one batch - my food processor was nowhere near full.

Wondering where to buy the ingredients? 

• Natural soaps - you can just use a natural soap from your supermarket, such as this beautiful Ecostore coconut soap, or find a Castile soap online like this one or a goat's milk soap or other natural soap picked up from a local farmer's or craft market. 
• Baking soda - (sodium bicarbonate) buy this in bulk, especially if you're going to use to for other cleaning purposes around the house, such as an odour neutraliser, or to clean the oven. Bulk food stores, online or perhaps your local farm store will stock bulk bags of baking soda. It doesn't have to be food grade. 
• Washing soda - (sodium carbonate) this stuff is the next step up from baking soda. It's been used since the good old days for laundry and can be found in the cleaning aisle at the supermarket, or often in bulk stores too. Try to find the finer version of it (more like a powder, and sometimes called soda ash) rather than the big marble sized crystal lumps of it which will be hard work for your food processor to grind down. Wear gloves when handling as washing soda can irritate sensitive skin.
• Borax - I found it easily online, but have since realised our local bulk food store sells it and you can find it in hardware stores too. Borax, not to be confused with boric acid, is the common name for sodium borate. Wear gloves when handling as it can irritate skin & don't breath in the dust.
• Essential oils - This is a totally optional addition. Technically clean clothes shouldn't smell of anything! But if you want to make your laundry powder smell divine pick your favourite essential oil to add to the recipe. I pick my essential oils up from doTERRA or my local health shop.

Some articles online suggest using an old food processor to make your laundry powder in, but I figured everything I put in it for my laundry powder recipe is a cleaning agent so a good scrub out with hot, soapy water afterwards had me more than happy to use it the very next day for baking. If you're worried about the borax powder in your food processor just add it at the end into your laundry container. There's a plethora of natural homemade laundry powder recipes out there to choose from.

Lastly, did you know you can add white vinegar to your washing machine's fabric softener dispenser as a cheaper, safer alternative to store bought fabric softeners?? I tried this just this weekend on my towels and I can attest that it works well! And it doesn't make your towels smell like vinegar I promise. They come out fresh smelling and soft.

If you have any questions leave me a comment! x