Making our own homemade laundry detergent has become one of my favorite ways to save money on something our family uses constantly. This easy powdered laundry detergent recipe costs us around $70 to make, takes less than 20 minutes to mix together and makes enough to last our family of three approximately six months.
And after actually using it long-term, I can tell you what worked, what we’d change and whether making laundry detergent at home really saves us money.
Why We Started Making Our Own Laundry Detergent
Like so many of our DIY projects, making our own laundry detergent started with wanting to find a simple way to save money at home. Laundry detergent is one of those household essentials we’re constantly buying, and the cost can add up quickly—especially when you’re doing laundry for an entire family.
That’s when we decided to try making a large batch of homemade laundry detergent instead.
Our goal was pretty simple: create an affordable laundry detergent that would clean our clothes well, smell good and last us much longer than the detergent we were buying at the store.
I honestly wasn’t sure how well it would work at first, but I was pleasantly surprised by how clean our clothes came out and how good they smelled. Even better, one batch lasted our family for 6+ months!
After seeing how easy it was to mix everything together and how long our first batch lasted, it quickly became one of those budget-friendly home projects that just made sense for our family.
What Makes This Homemade Laundry Detergent Different?
If you’ve searched for a homemade laundry detergent recipe before, you’ve probably seen recipes that involve grating bars of soap and combining them with ingredients like washing soda and Borax.
Our recipe is a little different!
Instead of grating soap, we combine several powdered laundry products and boosters to create one large batch of detergent. Everything is already in powder form, which makes this recipe incredibly simple to put together—pour, mix and store!
We specifically wanted a recipe that was easy to make in bulk. Rather than constantly buying another bottle or box of detergent, we can make one large batch and use it for months.
This isn’t a from-scratch soap recipe or an all-natural laundry detergent. Think of it more as our DIY bulk laundry detergent blend: an easy way to combine the laundry products we like into one convenient mixture that we can scoop out whenever it’s time to do a load.
Homemade Laundry Detergent Ingredients
One of the best parts about this homemade laundry detergent powder is how easy it is to put together. There’s no grating bars of soap or cooking anything on the stove. We simply combine the powdered laundry products into one large batch.
Here’s what we use:
FOCA Powder Laundry Detergent
FOCA is one of the powdered laundry detergents we use as the base of our mixture. It’s designed for cleaning everyday laundry and gives us a large amount of detergent without adding a huge amount to the overall cost of the batch.
Ariel Powder Laundry Detergent
We also add Ariel powdered detergent to our mixture for additional cleaning power. Combining our powdered detergents into one large batch means we don’t have to measure several different products every time we wash clothes—we do the mixing once and then simply scoop from our finished detergent.
Roma Laundry Detergent
Roma is another powdered laundry detergent we add to the blend. Like FOCA and Ariel, it’s an inexpensive way to add more cleaning detergent to our bulk recipe while helping us make enough to last our family for months.
Gain Powder Detergent with Downy
We use Gain with Downy in our recipe because we love the fresh scent it adds to our laundry. This is one of the ingredients that helps give our finished detergent that clean laundry smell we wanted without needing to add a separate fragrance to the mixture.
OxiClean
We add OxiClean as a laundry booster to help tackle stains and brighten our laundry. Since we’re already making such a large batch, adding it directly to our mixture means we don’t have to remember to add a separate scoop to every load.
Arm & Hammer Laundry Booster
Finally, we add Arm & Hammer Laundry Booster to our homemade detergent mixture. It’s designed to boost your detergent’s cleaning performance and helps round out our bulk laundry blend.
Once you have all of your ingredients, making the detergent itself is incredibly simple. The hardest part might actually be finding a container big enough to mix everything together!
Let’s get started on making some laundry detergent!
We found all the dry ingredients supplies at our local grocery store Walmart Supercenter in the laundry aisle! You can also find them all on Amazon, but it will be a little more expensive there.
If you can’t find at your local Walmart it wouldn’t hurt to check your other local grocery stores.
Shopping List:
- FOCA 176oz bag
- Gain with Downy 89 loads powder box
- Ariel (purple) 3.25lb bag
- ROMA laundry detergent (1lg 176oz bag or 10 small 17oz bags)
- Oxi Clean 5lb purple tub
- Arm & Hammer laundry booster 3lb (yellow box)
- 2 – 5 gallon buckets with lids or giant tub
Amazon sells all the items but they are more expensive. You can expect to spend closer to $90 for all the supplies. But, amazon will ship it right to your door which is nice and sometimes worth not having to brave the crowds.
Walmart you can go buy all of this off the shelf and it will cost you about $70 total! Truly the best option is if you want the convenience of it coming to your home and the amazing Walmart price. Walmart+ would make that possible for you! We love using Walmart+ all the time for so many everyday things we need delivered!
The full Walmart Shopping List
If you opt for the giant tub, ensure it’s big enough to fit two 5-gallon buckets’ worth of ingredients.
Make sure to keep your scoops that come with your Oxi Clean and Gain. You will use one of those to scoop your cups of detergent into the washing machine.
Making this recipe? Grab the FREE printable laundry detergent label to go with it!
Bonus: Free Laundry Detergent Label Printable!
Want to give your homemade detergent a polished, organized look? I’ve created a free printable label you can use for your container or jar. It’s simple, stylish, and functional—just download, print, and stick it on. Grab your free label here!
How to Make Homemade Laundry Detergent Powder
First thing, before you start…I recommend you mix this up on our front porch because the soap dust does make a bit of a mess. Plus, it makes the front porch smell good for a bit!
You can also mix it inside your home. Just be prepared to do some clean up after because that soap dust does get everywhere.
It leaves this slimy thick feeling on your skin and everywhere it lands. Trying to wipe it up with a wet rag is not the way to go. You are better off just vacuuming it up dry to get rid of it. Wetting it will just make your mess even bigger.
Don’t ask me how I know this, haha oops!
Method 1 — Mix Everything in One Large Container
- Open all your soaps and pour about half of each soap into the bucket.
- Mix with a giant spoon or broomstick until well combined.
- Add the remaining soap and mix again until thoroughly combined.
- Scoop out a small amount into a bucket for everyday use.
- Use an airtight container to store the remainder of the detergent long-term.
👇This is my preferred way of doing it.👇 Choose the way you want to mix it based on the way you want to store it!👇
Method 2 — Use 5-Gallon Buckets
- Open all your soaps and pour about half of each soap into each bucket.
- Put on the lids tightly and roll the buckets on their side back and forth to combine.
- Open the buckets to ensure they’re thoroughly combined.
- Scoop out a small amount into a bucket for everyday use.
- Use your airtight container Buckets to store the remainder of your detergent long-term.
How Much Homemade Laundry Detergent Should You Use Per Load?
Remember when I said to save those scoops. This is where they come in handy. I use the Gain scoop and use 1/2 to 1/3 of the scoop per load. I like 1/2 a scoop for really dirty/large loads and 1/3 a scoop for normal soil and size load.
Does Homemade Laundry Detergent Actually Work?
My answer to this is YESSSS! Not only does it make our clothes smell amazing and feel clean. It cleans my husbands dirty shift clothes that he uses as a fire fighter. We also have a toddler and do I need to say anymore…it keeps up with keeping her clothes clean also!!!
How Much Does Homemade Laundry Detergent Cost?
Check back…we are starting to track this now to see how many loads we actually get from this mix. I will tell you we basically do at least one load a day in our house and once a week do a big laundry day with half a dozen loads that day. So, going off of that math. We get 180 loads just from our daily single loads. Then another 156 ish loads from our weekly laundry days totaling = 336 loads. Which is $70 for the total cost divided by 336 loads equals $0.21 a load….
Like I said check back with us because we are tracking this on our current batch and I will update how close we are to that number soon as we get it! Do you think we will have that many loads in this batch?
How Long Does Homemade Laundry Detergent Last?
I want to be completely transparent…our first batch lasted us almost a year. We thought maybe this was a fluke but it was not. since then we have made a couple more batches and each one continues to last us a year in our house with a family of 3.
So, when I say 6 months that comes from my friend who has a family of 4 and that is what they shared with me. How long it lasts very much so depends on family size and how much you use it. How long did it last your family? Please feel free to email me and let me know anytime, I would love to hear what others experience with the time frame.
How to Store Homemade Laundry Detergent Powder
A good idea to keep in mind when choosing your mixing container. The mixing container will also serve as your long-term storage container. Keep in mind the size and shape of your container and where you will need to store it. In your laundry room or possibly somewhere else?
Ensure the lid is airtight and securely on to keep moisture out for a long time. Keeping it dry inside the container is key for long-term storage.
I like to keep smaller batches of it, like, a gallon jar size max in the cabinet above our washing machine for daily use. Simply refill the small container as needed!
Save your scoops that came with the laundry detergents you mix to use as your everyday scooper. Whether you are doing a small load or large load you can adjust the amount you scoop to fit your load size needs.
Bonus: Free Laundry Detergent Label Printable!
Want to give your homemade detergent a polished, organized look? I’ve created a free printable label you can use for your container or jar. It’s simple, stylish, and functional—just download, print, and stick it on. Grab your free label here!
Before you go…
The savings from using our DIY Laundry Detergent Recipe are incredible!
We did the math and realized we were spending at least $600 a year on laundry soap. I’m sorry, what? THAT IS $50 minimum a month we were spending on laundry soap. Basically a tank of gas which just seems crazy to me to spend on SOAP.
The cost of everything is going up and it is not ok. Especially for necessities like this that you have to buy regularly.
Another reason why we wanted to find an alternative to save money not only for us but to help you too! We would rather you save that money making your own detergent and use that money on something else way more fun.
Guess how much we spend on laundry detergent now every year? Now, we spend a maximum of only $120 a year!
And the convenience of not having to worry about running out of soap all the time is an added bonus. No more late-night or early-morning runs to the grocery store just for laundry soap.
What would you do with that extra $500-ish dollars a year now that you’re not spending it on soap?!
Good news, you can 100% save that $500 now and start planning what else you are going to spend that on! I seriously can’t tell you how grateful I am you found this post and I truly hope it helps you so much!
Hopefully you tell all of your friends and family how you made your own laundry soap. I don’t know about you but I am ok with showing these big companies they aren’t the only way anymore.
You and all your loved ones are going to save so much money! This seriously makes me so freaking excited for you!
If or when you do this DIY, I’d love for you to tag us on Instagram so I can see what you create!
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Homemade Laundry Detergent FAQs
Because this is a powdered laundry detergent mixture, warmer water generally helps powdered products dissolve more readily. If you wash in cold water, make sure the powder is dissolving completely and isn’t leaving residue on your clothing or inside your washer.
Always follow the water-temperature and usage directions provided for the individual laundry products in the recipe and your washing machine’s instructions.
For our family, one full batch lasts approximately 12 months for a family of 3. How long yours lasts will depend on how frequently you do laundry, your household size and how much detergent you use per load.
That’s one of the biggest reasons we continue making such a large batch—we can mix it once and have laundry detergent ready to go for an entire year.
We store our homemade laundry detergent in a large, tightly closed container in our laundry area. Because it’s a powdered mixture, keeping moisture out is important. A dry container with a secure lid helps prevent the powder from becoming damp or clumping together.
You can also transfer a smaller amount into a decorative container or jar for everyday use and refill it from your larger batch as needed.
And don’t forget—you can grab our free printable laundry detergent labels to dress up your storage container and make your homemade detergent look a little prettier sitting in the laundry room!
No. Our recipe does not contain Borax. Unlike many traditional homemade laundry detergent recipes that combine Borax, washing soda and grated bar soap, ours uses a blend of powdered laundry detergents and laundry boosters.
If avoiding a particular ingredient is important to you, always check the current ingredient labels for every individual product you use, since manufacturers can change their formulas.
I have yet to figure out how to make a smaller batch since the ingredients come in the sizes they do and I can not change that. But, I have had many people reach out and say they split the cost with friends and family and split the batches. This is so smart and I love this idea!
Yes. If you prefer less fragrance, you can leave out or replace the scented portion of the recipe. Just keep in mind that this recipe uses several commercially prepared laundry products, and some of the other ingredients may contain fragrance of their own.
If you’re sensitive to fragrance, check the ingredient labels on each individual product rather than assuming the finished mixture will be completely fragrance-free.
Love that you are reducing the plastic jugs going into the landfills too!
I love that you mentioned this! It definitely feels a lot less wasteful to us as well!!!
Thank you for this recipe! Thecost of laundry supplies are so high these days. I will be mixing this up this weekend.
I agree, insanely expensive!!! I would love to know how it works out for you!!!!