Three Ingredient Laundry Detergent

 Buying laundry detergent is one of my least favorite things to do. It can be SO pricy! And with as much laundry as I do every week, I couldn't help but picture hard earned money swirling down the drain with all the dirty water the laundry produces. But I can't not do laundry and I'm thankful to have a family that lovingly produces so many mountains of it. So I decided to find a more economical way to get the job done and found a recipe for homemade laundry detergent. There are a LOT of recipes out there. Many of them require a long list of ingredients, lots of time grating or melting bars of soap and lots stirring and sloshing soapy detergent around in big buckets. Not saying I won't try one of those recipes sometime. In fact, I'm planning on trying this simple recipe for 6-ingredient powdered detergent sometime in the near future. But a few weeks ago my laundry was looming and my detergent bottle was empty and I refused to go out and buy some more. That's when I came across this ridiculously easy and effective homemade laundry detergent. It requires three ingredients. Just THREE! And chances are you have all of them on hand!  You can whip up a gallon of detergent in no time and continue conquering the mountains of laundry without batting an eye. I have been using this detergent for a couple weeks now and have been totally satisfied with how our laundry has come out. Sure, the scent may not be as strong as your typical store bought detergent, but if you must have laundry that smells a certain way you can always throw a dryer sheet in the dryer. Works for me.

Three Ingredient Laundry Detergent

originally pinned from here

3 Tablespoons borax
3 Tablespoons washing soda (keep reading to see how to make your own!)
2 Tablespoons Dawn dish soap (Dawn works best because it gets the grease stains out!)

Put these ingredients in a one gallon jug. Pour 4 cups boiling water into the jug. Swirl until ingredients are dissolved in the liquid. Let liquid cool. Then fill almost to the top with cold water. The bubbles will overflow out of the bottle. No worries. They'll settle.



I just kept my big blue jug from previously bought detergent and refill it with the homemade stuff.
It's convenient to have that lid so I can use it to measure out the detergent for each load. You'll want to use around 3/4 cup of this detergent for each load of laundry. It's very watery and you'll think there's no way it can do the job. But trust me, it can and it does. I'm totally happy with it.

Up until our invasion last summer I had never heard of borax. Now I find new things to do with it almost all the time. I feel like I should thank the deceased house pests for forcing me into this new relationship with borax. Seriously, there are so many things you can do with the stuff. And yes, I'll share all my favorite discoveries with you. One at a time. So, if you've yet to purchase your first box...do it now! I promise I will give you many, many awesome ways to use it up!

You can make your own washing soda. Thank goodness! I had a giant bag of baking soda and didn't want to have to buy anything else in order to make this detergent. What's the difference between baking soda and washing soda? My simple answer to the question is -- approximately 30 minutes in the oven. (You can go here for all the chemistry info and directions) Yep, that's right. All you need is some baking soda and a 400 degree oven. I went ahead and made about two cups of washing soda at once because I knew I would use it again in the near future and it would be convenient to just scoop some out of a little container rather than adding more time by waiting for regular baking soda to convert in the oven. Now, if you're only making a few tablespoons of washing soda at a time, your "cook" time in the oven will be significantly shorter.


Dawn has various scents so you're free to switch things up and change the scent whenever you want. Or, like I said before, you can use dryer sheets if you're so inclined.


That's it! Three ingredients plus some water. Way simple. Way economical. I'm way happy to have found this recipe! I have come across numerous other laundry tips and tricks that I'm looking forward to sharing with you in the near future. Stay tuned!