I scoured Pinterest for the easiest & most stain fighting recipes I could find. I'm not going to list the recipes, since they are not my own, but I will show you my supplies & give you the links to the original recipes & share my thoughts on them.
Homemade Laundry Soap from Being Creative To Keep My Sanity
{Laundry Soap Supplies}
This is a pretty easy thing to make. The parts that took the longest were opening all the boxes & trying to find my cheese grater, which I apparently gave away...oops! To make this, you first grate the Fels-Naptha. Since I couldn't find my grater, I ended up using my tiny food processor. It worked fine & only took a few minutes. Then, dump all the ingredients in a 5-gallon bucket & mix them up. Add 1-2 tablespoons of this detergent per load.
I found all the supplies for this detergent in the laundry aisle at my local Wal-Mart. I threw my receipt away, but I'd say I spent around $15 to make this, & according to the original source, it should last around 9 months (if you do 8 loads per week using 2 tablespoons per load).
The Verdict: I found this detergent to work as well, if not better than my regular detergent in my front loading washing machine. The only stains that have not come out of my kids' clothes were from the clay mud we have here, but my normal detergent never got those out either.
A Word About Fels-Naptha Soap--- The father of the flower girls for my wedding is an artist. When we had the girls try on their dresses, the dad picked one of them up, & got oil paint on one of the dresses. Yikes! He told us that using Fels-Naptha soap on the paint should remove it. My mom tried it, & sure enough, you couldn't even tell it ever had paint on it! If nothing else, it would probably be a good idea to keep some of this on hand for stain treatment, just in case!
Homemade Oxy Clean from Thrifty & Fabuless
{Oxy Clean Pre-Treatment Supplies}
This is another quick & easy recipe. Basically, you mix together water, peroxide, & baking soda. I put them in an old dish soap bottle, so I could squeeze them onto the stains.
To use, shake up the mixture (the baking soda usually settles at the bottom) & squeeze onto stains 20 minutes before laundering.
The Verdict: This did a great job getting the berry stains out of my daughter's shirt. I have been using it for a couple of weeks & have been pleased with the results! Not bad, for a very CHEAP stain remover! You may want to check the labels or test certain fabrics in an inconspicuous area. I'm not sure if peroxide is safe for all fabrics, but so far, I haven't had any problems.
Homemade Fabric Softener from a friend's facebook page
{Fabric Softener Supplies}
Ingredients
2 cups inexpensive hair conditioner
3 cups white vinegar
6 cups water
Mix ingredients together & add to the fabric softener dispenser of your washing machine.
The Verdict: I used a capful from an old bottle of fabric softener. This seemed pretty watery, so I didn't dilute it. I was kind of disappointed in the fabric softener. It didn't make my clothes smell pretty & some of my husband's basketball shorts still had static cling after drying them. Maybe using different conditioner or less water would help. I rarely use fabric softener, so I'm not sure if I will make this again, but I will definitely use up the two containers that it made!
Well, that's it! Have you tried to make any of these supplies? What were your results?
