Tea Time with Jo | DIY Liquid Laundry Detergent

Ingredients (64oz batch):

1/2 cup of Liquid Castile Soap

1/8 cup each of Washing Soda, Baking Soda and Borax

8oz of Brewed Herbal Tea (optional; see below)

48oz of Water

Steps:

-Steep 8oz of herbal tea that you wish to use for scent and additional cleaning power. I suggest using lavender buds or lemon balm; both of which add a lovely scent and do not stain your clothes. Make this tea as strong as you can to really infuse the scent; allowing it to steep for at least 10min. While this is happening, do the following: 

-Heat 48oz of water on the stove, just before a simmer. Stir in all of your powders until they dissolve in the water.

-Once dissolved, strain your tea and combine it with the 48oz of warm water with the dissolved powders. 

-Allow to sit overnight or at least until it cools completely. If using a thickened liquid Castile soap like this one, it will thicken and turn a cloudy/milky color once it is ready. See pics of this transformation on this IG post. 

-Use 4oz for small loads, 6-8oz for regular/large loads. Can be poured into the dispenser or directly into the drum. 

-Use white vinegar as fabric softener and/or wool dryer balls in the drum of your dryer. 

Notes: 

Just like my laundry powder recipe, this recipe is easily scaleable and you can double it or triple it to make a bigger batch. Generally speaking, 64oz is not a lot of laundry detergent when you may need to use 8oz per wash if you run larger loads, so why bother making it? Well, for starters it’s cheap! Once you make the initial investment of buying all the ingredients, a 64oz batch costs ~$2. If you have the space to store a full 5 gallon drum, then you get about 80 larger loads worth for ~$20. This formula is also non-toxic and is far less likely to irritate even the most sensitive skin (provided that the tea you choose is not irritating to anyone in your home). 

Over time, your detergent may separate a bit and require that you shake it before using so it is a good idea to store it in an airtight container with a lid. 

As with the detergent powder, if your clothes tends to get really dirty (sport’s clothing, mechanic’s uniforms, cloth diapers, etc), you may want to consider adding an enzymatic cleaner to your washing machine drum. I like to use this one. 

If you like your clothes to smell like something, this liquid detergent recipe does allow for the clothes to hold on to the scent better than the powder. If I really want to add scent, I use drops of essential oils on wool dryer balls or on a small wash cloth that acts like a dryer sheet. My favorites to use are lavender, bergamot and lemongrass. I notice that using the oils on the wash cloth far reduces the chances of oil stains getting on my clothes over using them on the wool dryer balls. 

I hope you find this recipe helpful. Let me know how it turned out if you decide to give it a try. Catch you in the next blog post :)