Preparing your own 100% natural, homemade laundry detergent is one of the most accessible ways to start your transition to a zero-waste, healthier life. Indeed, the products that you can buy in stores, even if they tend to have an increasingly interesting composition, are sometimes still loaded with chemicals that you should avoid as much as possible.
The good news is that prepare your homemade laundry requires only a few ingredients and very little time. Here is a simple recipe to make!
Why make your own homemade laundry detergent?
Even if major distributors have made great efforts to offer organic and natural alternatives to their customers (this is particularly the case in the Lidl catalog onlinethe brand having its own range of organic cleaning products, but also among its competitors such as Carrefour which distributes ecological laundry detergents La Maison Verte), industrial laundry detergents are most often chemical compounds. For example, we find in the list of their ingredients sulfates, perfumes, phenols and much more.
Some brands even continue to use petroleum distillates, which we now know carcinogenic effects and links with certain lung diseases.
To avoid all these products which are, in the long term, harmful to the environment and especially to your health, it is therefore much preferable to make your own detergent.
What ingredients will you need to prepare your homemade laundry detergent?
Don’t panic: you will actually only need three basic ingredients (very easy to find) to make your own homemade powder or liquid detergent:
- Soda crystals (which you can find in most department stores). They are sometimes called soda ash and made from common salt and limestone. They are also found in the form of natural deposits. You can also make and perfume them yourself.
- You Borax (also available in major retailers). It is a natural mineral composed of sodium, boron, oxygen and water. It is a common ingredient in most natural soaps;
- A bar soap (preferably natural, glycerin-free and fragrance-free).
All these ingredients, as we have just seen, can be easily purchased in your usual supermarket. Soda crystals as well as borax will usually be available in the aisle where you usually bought your laundry detergent and soap with beauty products.
The recipe for homemade natural laundry detergent
Now let’s move on to practice. Here is our natural laundry recipeto be made with the ingredients that we have just presented to you:
- Grate the soap or use a food processor to obtain a fine ground powder. You can use the soap of your choice, but we have a slight preference for natural or even homemade soaps (from coconut oil for example);
- In a large bowl, mix two cups of soda crystals, 2 cups of Borax, and one cup of grated soap.
- Store your homemade laundry detergent in a closed, airtight container.
- Use 2 tablespoons for each of your laundry loads.
Preparing your own laundry detergent at home is not only very simple, but an excellent alternative to chemical detergents. However, for those who cannot find the time to make it themselves, it is still possible to find ecological and natural products in stores!