Natural Homemade Laundry Liquid

My Grandma used to make homemade laundry liquid. Now, while I don’t have her exact recipe, I know mine is similar as I remember her saving all her left over bits of soap to use when making it. Back in her day a pure soap was easy to come by. These days even the soaps labelled “pure” in the supermarket are not always pure. Why is it that companies have to scrimp on costs to make a product that is less effective and bad for us?

The laundry is a place most of us spend a lot of time in. I mean, we all need clean clothes, right? One would think it’s safe to just use whatever laundry soap or detergent you want based on the smell and washing ability. Sadly – that’s not the case.

Unfortunately the majority of the laundry soaps and detergents available to us are riddled with dangerous chemicals such as 1,4-dioxane; fragrance; SLS; and more. We breathe in those chemicals as the laundry is being washed and dried (hello toxic dryer sheets!) AND we can even be absorbing them as we wear our clothes and snuggle into our blankets and towels. Ahhh! Why risk things like skin, nose, throat, and lung irritation or long-term effects to our organs and hormones? Some of these dangerous chemicals have even been linked to cancer yet they’re still readily available to us and marketed as “safe” and “normal.”

Natural Homemade Laundry Liquid

I started making my own homemade laundry liquid when my eldest daughter was in cloth nappies. I had researched the eco brand laundry detergent we were using and found out that some of the ingredients aren’t that great. Stick an earth picture on the label and somehow we all think it must be good, right? Well this is definitely not the case.

I needed something that could be used in our septic tank and wasn’t going to irritate my new baby’s sensitive skin as I had previously suffered from eczema and didn’t want her to suffer the same fate. I also needed a natural laundry liquid that actually worked. The last thing I wanted was stains on my cloth nappies. If you want to read more about my cloth nappy journey check out my blog post on this.

Cost Effective Natural Homemade Laundry Liquid

So I started to experiment with making laundry liquid. Now while I call it a liquid – which it is when you first make it – it sets into more of a gel. I love how cheap it ends up being! I worked out the whole batch only cost me around $3.50 plus the white bucket that I picked up at Bunnings.

The recipe makes a whopping 10 litres at a time so I wouldn’t have to make it every few days either. When I first started making it I had a top loader and just threw it in then let the machine fill up with a bit of water before putting in the clothes. Then I bought a front loader and found that I needed to mix the gel with a little bit of water before putting it in the laundry liquid compartment to make sure it got added to the tub of the washing machine during the cycle.

Natural Homemade Laundry Liquid Recipe

Ingredients

• Grate 1 cake pure soap (I love to use the Thieves bar soap) into a 10 litre bucket with lid
• 1 cup washing soda
• 1 cup white vinegar
• A capful of Thieves Household Cleaner
• 5-10 drops of a Young Living Essential Oil you like the smell of.

Method

• Grate the soap into the bucket and then pour a kettle full of boiling water over the soap. Stir with a wooden spoon until the soap has dissolved.
• In the laundry tub, fill the bucket up half way with hot water from the tap.
• Add the washing soda, vinegar, Thieves Household Cleaner and essential oils.
• Stir well.
• Fill bucket to almost full with hot water.
• Stir.
• Use immediately or leave to set into gel-like consistency.
• Use ½ to 1 cup of the homemade laundry liquid for each load of washing. More for heavily soiled clothes.

Don’t have the time to make natural homemade Laundry Liquid?

I’ll be honest , these days I mostly buy the Thieves laundry soap as I really love how great it is to use. It is made of plant-based ingredients and leaves no chemical or synthetic residue so you can snuggle up with NO worries! It contains natural enzymes and cleaning agents and of course, the most powerful essential oils on the planet.

Your clothes will be fresh and clean and left with a light citrus scent, not a heavy perfume.The best part about this soap is that it’s concentrated so a little goes a long way! You can get 64 loads with just one 947ml bottle, making it economic AND a safe alternative for your family. Want to get DOUBLE that? Try this hack!

• Remove half of the soap from the bottle.
• Add 3 capfuls of Thieves Household Cleaner (as a booster; optional).
• Fill the bottle with distilled or filtered water.
• Gently shake until completely incorporated.
• Use as directed on the bottle.

Alternative to dryer sheets

One last trick… instead of grabbing dryer sheets (also filled with dangerous chemicals), grab some wool dryer balls from Amazon or ebay. It’s such an easy switch! Add 3-5 drops of your choice of essential oil to each dryer ball and freshen up that laundry. Tip: add the oils to the balls at the end of the cycle and let them toss for 5 minutes for best results.

Natural Cleaning Recipes

If you would like more of my great all natural cleaning recipes including the Homemade Laundry Liquid then click the link to download your FREE copy of my Natural Cleaning e-book.