The laundry debate: What is the cost of homemade laundry soap?

A while back, I shared with you my recipe for homemade laundry detergent. Today, as we made a new batch (Our 4th batch in 1 year) I decided to take a look at how the laundry soap is working out for us.

First batch I made, I used borax. Borax is a mined mineral and does a good job with laundry. It's marketed in fact as a "Laundry  booster". The Duggars, famously of "19 Kids and Counting" have made the recipe for borax based laundry soap popular amongst the cheapskate/DIY internet world. I have to say, the borax based laundry soap worked really well! Your clothes come out fresh and clean, with no scent excepting the tiniest trace of whatever bar soap you used in the mix. If you are interested in using borax in your soap try out the Duggar's recipe:

Duggar family soap

But....I did some more digging and decided that I did not want to use Borax any longer, or Fels Naptha for that matter. Why? Because they are both harsh on the environment and my reason for making my own soap was to be greener as well as cheaper. Read more about it here: http://www.enviroblog.org/2011/02/borax-not-the-green-alternative-its-cracked-up-to-be.html

So..I looked around and finally came up with this recipe:

Borax free laundry soap:
1 cup arm & hammer super washing powder
1/2 cup baking soda
1 bar dr. bonner castile soap grated

Mix together and use 1 tbsp (heaping if your laundry is really dirty) per load. Works for front loading washers AND top loading)

Now, this makes a small batch of soap. I make it in HUGE batches because we are a large family and I don't like grating up soap very often...it's messy business! (though MUCH easier thanks to our stand mixer with grater attachment!)

This recipe works really well! My clothes are clean (but not softened) and again, no smell on the. The baking soda especially gets rid of the odors and the washing soda (NOT the same thing as baking soda) dissolves dirt. Plus there is little impact on the gray water that comes from the wash as the castille soap, baking soda and washing powder are all green. Yay!!

So what does it cost to use this soap? The most expensive ingredient is the bar castille soap which I get either from Wegman's or Amazon.com in a pack of 6 for $21 or $3.50 a bar. Yes..wow. It's pricey! But..remember that you're grating up a bar and then only using 1 Tbsp per load of your wash. The baking soda I found at Aldi's the other day for $.48/box. Yes!! Under a dollar! And a box has two cups in it so you only need 1/4 of the box to make this small batch! (But trust me...make a large batch! It's worth it!) Washing soda comes in a box of 55oz for about $10 or less. So...if you use all 6 bars of your castille soap you got from Amazon you'd need 6 cups of washing soda (less than one box) and three cups of baking soda (1.5 boxes). You'll be able to do this for about $32 for the big batch. You'll get about 400 loads of laundry, which comes out to.....*Drumroll please*.........$.15/load.

$.15/load!

So, is this worth it? Heck yes!! How much do you pay per load to use Tide? About $.50/load. But remember you're also adding toxins into the enviroment AND onto your body as they soak in through your skin....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/26/tide-detergent-1-4-dioxane_n_1455575.html

So, think about it. Is it worth it to YOU to go through the soap grinding effort to have clean clothes?