Now, I know parents out there that just let their kids do whatever when it comes to clothes. By that, I mean, the kids can change their clothes at their hearts content. This does not happen at my house. You wear one outfit a day unless you are either A) Told to change your clothes for a reason by a parent, or B) Super filthy and must change your clothes as to not spread your joy around the house. My kids think it is a silly rule, but that rule keeps clothes in their closets just a bit longer.
I do have a super high capacity laundry machine. It holds plenty of clothes. In fact, I can wash our queen sized comforters in it without a problem. So load size is not my issue. My issue has been laundry detergent. I have 2 boys with sensitive skin so things like Tide are out of the question for us. So, I have been using All Free & Clear. It works... It is more than I truly want to spend on laundry soap, and because of our hard water I am constantly having to clean out the dispenser area. So I decided to try Rockin Green. Rockin Green left our clothes super smelly and I was very upset. I am happy to say I only spent money on the trial sized packets, but unless I used twice the maximum recommended dose my clothes were even coming close to getting clean... Let alone my diapers! So I went to a different product called Ecosprout. Ecosprout was about as bad as Rockin Green. Ecosprouts only saving grace was that the clothes came out slightly less smelly. I was frustrated. I just wanted a more natural solution to laundry soap and I am just hitting brick walls.
So I broke down and decided to try making my own. I got a recipe from a friend that swears this stuff works. I went out and bought all the supplies for around $15 and mixed it up in preparation for my laundry this weekend. I was skeptical and figured that this wasn't going to work any better than my last two failed attempts, but I had to try. I had to try something to ease our laundry woes...
And it worked.
I couldn't believe it. This stuff actually cleaned our clothes leaving them smelling fresh and clean. The boys dirty clothes were clean after the first wash and I didn't even use a stain fighter pre-treatment. So, here is the recipe that I am now using:
I used Fels-Naptha instead of Zote because that is what we had in our local store, but I had to remove my foot from my mouth after using this detergent. I was shocked that it worked as well as it did and it is a fraction of the cost of what I have been spending on laundry. I grated the soap by hand and dumped everything in a tin left over from popcorn last Christmas. There was just barely enough space for everything in the tin, but it fit. I put the lid on and handed the tin off to my husband to shake the heck out of to mix it up. This batch should last my family around 6 months given the amount of laundry we do.
Just to give you an idea... I have been spending about $15 on my ALL every 6 weeks. (We do A LOT of laundry and have to use slightly more soap because of the hard water.) I spend about $7 every 3-4 weeks on fabric softener, mostly just to give the clothes a decidedly clean smell. (The clean smell makes it easier to determine what is clean and what is not when braving my boys rooms...) All in all, I have been spending about $135 a year on detergent and another $90ish on fabric softener per year. $225 a year on laundry supplies.... Scary! Now with the new recipe, assuming it continues to work and I don't come across any issues in the future, I will be spending around $30-45 per year on detergent with a laundry treatment in it. Saving close to $200 a year won't seem like much out of our monthly budget, but it is just that little bit more money that can go towards something else.
I will make sure to post if I find any flaws in this recipe, but so far so good! We have washed clothes and sheets and diapers in it with great results each time!
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