This stuff is the bomb. It’s all we’ve used for over a year! It’s very close to this recipe and this recipe, both by Jillee, on one of my favorite blogs ever, One Good Thing By Jillee. I just have a slightly different method, so I thought I would share how I do it and how it’s worked for us!
Starts off with three super simple ingredients. Borax, Washing Soda, and Dawn dish soap. If you read through all the comments on Jillee’s posts, you can see that it’s pretty much ok to use any brand dish soap, or liquid soap such as Castile, so it is very versatile and customizable. I chose this because I love the grease fighting power of Dawn, and the Thai Dragon Fruit scented one smells great. 🙂
Because our laundry load with just two adults is a lot less than your average family of four, I discovered I didn’t need to make as much at a time, and living in an apartment, smaller bottles are good for storage. I repurposed a couple of empty 38 ounce plastic ketchup bottles.
I’ve had best results making this in small batches myself, but you could probably double it and only do it once to save time. I use my smallest saucepan, and add:
3 tablespoons Borax
3 tablespoons Washing Soda
1 cup water
Stir, set over medium low heat and bring to easy boil. The mixture will be cloudy at first, but will clear up as it boils. This should only take a couple minutes. Once it is all clear and no longer cloudy, remove from heat. Add some cool water to bring the temperature down, and pour into your bottle. Fill with water until nearly full, then add 2 tablespoons liquid soap, (adding the soap last helps avoid bubble overflow) cap, and shake to combine. Repeat for second bottle!
You may choose to simply throw your dry ingredients into the bottle, add hot tap water and shake it up, but personally, I’ve never gotten all the powder to dissolve that way. This will separate a little, so just give it a good shake before you use it. You do have to be careful not to over boil it in the stovetop method though, I did that once and when I went to use it, I had a solidified chunk of cleaning agents at the bottom of a bottle of water. Oops.
This lasts us for at least a month usually. Since it has much less water and is more concentrated, you can use less per load. I don’t even measure anymore, I just squeeze in a couple shots, but 1/4 cup per load should be the general guideline.
Now, how well does is work? Very well! While our laundry doesn’t come out with a strong ‘dragon fruit’ sent, it always comes out looking and smelling clean. We’ve used it on sweaty clothes, dirty cleaning rags, cloth napkins, puppy accidents, kitty accidents, the blanket out of the dog crate that was left in there way too long with a stinky indoor-outdoor pooch sleeping on it every night, and more, and all of those nasty smelly things have come out of the laundry without a hint of their previous lives!
Urban Sugartree 