Homemade Laundry Detergent

So my kitchen science experiment for today was making homemade laundry detergent. I've done a bit of research on this by reading several internet sites and have realized that quite a bit of savings can be made by making your own and most have stated that it works just as well, if not better than commercial detergent.

When I posted "my status" on facebook today that I wanted to do this and receiving several responses, I decided to give it a try. One of my friends, Cheryl, gave me this recipe below for powdered detergent and so it's what I decided to go with since it's coming from a personal source. I also have a recipe for "liquid" detergent and might try that one down the road. It requires a 5 lb. bucket, of which we did not have laying around, and so for storage reasons, decided to go with the powder.

In preparation for making this, in recent weeks, I had purchased both types of soap called for in the recipe, Fels Naptha and Kirk's Castile, and so I made a batch of each. For the shaving/grating, I cut it up the bar of soap in to chunks and then used my chef's chopper to "grate" it. I barely use my chopper, believe it or not, for food chopping and so I figured I might as well get some sort of use out of it!

We will run out of commercial laundry soap this week and so I will then try this homemade mix and report my feedback!!

Ingredients
1 cup Fels Naptha or Kirk's Castile, shaved and grated
1/2 cup Borax
1/2 cup washing soda

Directions
Use ONE tablespoon per load.
Use a little more if you have an especially dirty load.