Homemade Laundry Soap

Before Ava was born I read that you must use hypoalergenic laundry detergent on baby clothes but when I saw the price for Dreft I decided to do something a little more cost effective. I found this wonderful homemade laundtry soap recipe and in 6 months I have spent about 7 dollars on laundtry soap and I use some of the ingredients for dish detergent too. This recipe is for liquid soap the consistency is not as nice as store bought but it works great! I don't add the essential oils because the soap already has a lemony scent.

1-bar Fels-Naptha soap

1 cup Borax

1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (NOT BAKING SODA!)

Hot tap water

5 gallon bucket with lid

2 gallon plastic beverage dispenser

Light colored essential oils (optional)



Grate bar of soap with a cheese grater. Fill the 5 gallon bucket 1/2 full with hot tap water. Melt the grated soap slowly over med-low heat in a large saucepan with 2.5 cups of water. Once the soap is completely melted, add this to the water in the five gallon bucket. Now add the Borax and the Super Washing Soda and stir. Now top the bucket off with more hot tap water. Loosely put the lid on the bucket and leave over night to thicken.


You can add 15 – 20 drops of essential oils to this if you like. (Lavender, Lemon, Peppermint, etc.)

I use about 3/4 cup per load if you have an energy efficient loader you can use less.

I have a friend that makes dry laundry soap from equal parts fels naptha, borax, and washing soda. That seems to work pretty good too! If you make it dry you must grate the fels naptha very fine though since it dissolves slowly and you don't want it left in your clothes. Happy Soap making!!