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Homemade laundry detergent

I mentioned I made my own for about $20 and it lasted many months, some asked for the recipe. Well, it’s this recipe right here. I also add about four cups of TSP because it’s good at cleaning and because the government mandates that manufacturers of detergents can’t use it. Also, when it comes to shredding the Fels-Naptha, it’s hard to do by hand and it will mess with low end food processors and blenders. However, my Ninja has no trouble shredding it.

And, one more thing, it doesn’t take much to do a load. She says 1-2 table spoons. We use half of one of those small scoops that comes with Oxi Clean, which is a little bit more but not much.

8 Responses to “Homemade laundry detergent”

  1. Rivrdog Says:

    I keep a couple pounds of TSP around by the machine. When I have super-duty laundry to wash I use it. In a full load, I add .25 cup. I max out the rinse water setting and bump up to hot water. The Carhartts come out REALLY clean. Too effing bad downstream.

  2. Michael Hawkins Says:

    Protip: oxy clean is barely anything more than scented sodium percarbonate with some dry detergent and fillers at jacked up price.

  3. Standard Mischief Says:

    >..oxy clean is .. sodium percarbonate ..at jacked up price.

    I get a generic at Dollar Tree, 16 oz.for $1. Know of any cheaper sources?

    A scoop of this stuff in a bucket of water is the sh!t for getting the labels off of glass bottles. Soak anywhere from 20 min. to overnight and they peel right off. This is an old homebrewing trick.

  4. mikee Says:

    Back in the 1960s there was a push by the alternative lifestyle people (redneck hippies, basically) to use fewer consumer goods and be self sufficient. Stuff like this resulted from their desire to tune out, turn on, and still have freshly laundered undies and clean shirts.

    They did it to avoid brand names and demonstrate self-sufficiency more than anything else. Foxfire books were a favorite read of mine from that era. Not only could one learn how to make soap from basic chemicals, the articles ranged from “how to dig an outhouse hole” to “how to avoid injury when getting stomped by pigs in a riot.”

    Coupled with The Progressive’s articles on “how to make a thermonuclear bomb” and “how to make napalm,” this type of reading really expanded my horizons as a child.

  5. Phelps Says:

    I’ve had good results adding about 1 tsp of TSP to both the washing machine and the dishwasher. And I’m with Riverdog — F downstream.

  6. Ralph Says:

    Anyone know what adding TSP does to a septic system?

  7. Cemetery's Soap Blob Says:

    Hey Unc, what about using Lye soap?

  8. Jeph Says:

    The recipe calls for Fels-Naptha soap, but it’s just old-school bar soap and you can make your own. The gist of it is mixing one part sodium or potassium hydroxide (lye, potash, etc.) and one part oil (any oil will work) or lard, then heating and stirring it. There are lots of recipes online. Bonus: a by-product of the process is glycerine. You can make your own potash by soaking wood ash from your fireplace in water, filtering the ash out, then evaporating the water.

    The hitch of “F- downstream” is that TSP is a fertilizer for algae and algae blooms kill the fish we like to fish for or make you sick when you eat the fish. That’s why .gov told soap companies to stop using it.

Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.

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