Lavender-Lemon Homemade Laundry Detergent Without Borax
I’m so excited to share this Lavender Lemon Homemade Laundry Detergent without Borax with you. It’s a mouthful of a name, but it’s surprisingly easy to make!
I’ve had an affinity for making homemade homemaking products almost ever since I can remember, and certainly long before I knew anything about how ingredients and chemicals in what we use can affect our bodies.
I wanted to make homemade soap long before I knew that commercial soap was hard on your skin.
I wanted to make homemade lotion long before I knew commercial lotions did more long-term damage than short-term good.
And the list goes on. It’s just so satisfying to make your own stuff!
Where to Start With Homemade Products
One of the first things I wanted to make was homemade laundry detergent. Especially after I had my first child and found that he was sensitive to the detergent, I washed his diapers in.
And I did make homemade liquid laundry detergent off and on after that – switching it out with Thieves® laundry detergent now and then when I found myself bogged down with too much to do and too little time for making homemade goodies.
Today, however, I’m making powdered homemade laundry detergent without borax. To be honest, this recipe switch is as much to keep things simple as any other reason. Plus, I do love the lavender-lemon scent combination on my laundry!
Homemade Laundry Detergent Recipe
In the recipe below, I’ve linked to the various ingredients on Amazon, but you can also find most of them in your local store’s laundry aisle.
PrintLavender Lemon Homemade Laundry Detergent Without Borax
This simple recipe for homemade detergent will change your life!
Ingredients
- 1 bar of Dr. Bronner’s hand soap (or your preferred soap)
- 1 cup washing soda (This is found relatively cheaply in the laundry aisle of the grocery store)
- 1 cup baking soda
- 1/2 cup citric acid
- 10–20 drops of lavender essential oil
- 10–20 drops of lemon essential oil
- 1–2 tablespoons white vinegar
- Airtight container
Instructions
- Using a cheese grater, grate one bar of soap into a large bowl.
- Add washing soda, baking soda and citric acid to bowl.
- Mix everything together thoroughly.
- Add essential oils.
- Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar. It will fizz a bit, but that is just the vinegar reacting with the baking soda.
- Mix into the soap mixture. The vinegar helps soften your clothes. If it doesn’t get too wet, you can add more than 1 tablespoon, but I don’t recommend adding more than 2.
- Add mixture to an airtight container.
- Use 1/4 cup per load.
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How many loads does this make? Also, are you avoiding borax for a reason? Looks like most homemade laundry soaps use it. Thanks!
I too would love to know if there’s a reason for skipping out on the Borax.
Does this recipe get clunky or do you get any build up at all in the washer? How much does it dissolve? How effective is it compared to say Tide?
I absolutely loved this recipe even though I botched it up the first time! I made the mistake of shredding all the 3 bars of soap into my food prosser at once (I tripled the recipe), and it turned into squishy little balls of soap, which when mixed with the other ingredients turned into a hard mass of rock!! I still used every bit of it by chipping away at it little by little because I loved how it smelled and cleaned my clothes! Thankfully that batch is gone, and I just made the recipe again…my best tip for perfectly fine, well combined detergent is to put the dry ingredients in the processor first, and slowly grate 1 bar into it..do just one batch at a time. It turned out amazing!!!! Thank you for this lovely recipe!!
★★★★★