How Much Cheaper is it to Make Your Own Homemade Laundry Detergent ?
82An increasingly popular cost-cutting measure is to make homemade laundry detergent.
- How much cheaper is this compared to store-bought detergent?
- Would the savings be significant when added up over an entire year?
To calculate this, I made homemade laundry detergent according to the recipe of fellow hubber R. Talloni. The equipment and supplies I needed are shown along with the price at which I bought them in the table below. Costs are in US dollars and include the amount of sales tax. Depending on what part of the world you live in (or even what part of the US), costs may vary. Some of these supplies were available in the dollar store, so will likely cost more elsewhere.
Up-front costs for making homemade laundry detergent
Equipment
| Price ($US)
|
|---|---|
5 gallon pail
| $2.69
|
Lid for pail
| $1.24
|
Pitchers (2 total)
| $2.12
|
Grater
| $1.06
|
Measuring cup
| $1.06
|
Ingredients
| |
Borax
| $3.16
|
Washing soda
| $3.43
|
Zote soap
| $1.68
|
TOTAL
| $16.44
|
Zote soap isn't easy to find but we've got you covered!
- Where to buy Zote soap in the US
Wondering where to buy Zote soap? This laundry soap is not especially common, but is used in many home made laundry detergents. This guide will show you where to find Zote soap in the US.
Total costs vs ingredient costs
So to get set up, the total cost for everything was $16.44. However, note that some of that cost was for long-lasting equipment such as the pail, pitchers etc which would last for subsequent sessions of making homemade laundry detergent.
The ingredients which go into the laundry detergent are not completely used up in one session, except for the Zote soap. In the case of the borax and washing soda, I calculated the amount actually used in one session to be only 12 cents for borax and 53 cents for the washing soda. Add that to the cost of the Zote soap at $1.68, and you get 5 gallons of concentrated homemade laundry detergent for only $2.33 worth of ingredients! (Note that I didn’t include the cost of the equipment here).
The ingredients work out to only 1 cent per load of laundry!
How much does this work out to be per load of laundry? By knowing that only 1/4 C of the 5 gallons is actually used in one load of laundry, I calculated the cost to be only 1 cent per load! Again, this doesn’t include the cost of equipment.
In contrast, the cost of store-bought detergent, even for budget brands, begins at 11 cents per load
I calculated the price per load of 3 major brands: All, Gain, and Tide. As well as variation between different brands, prices varied within each brand due to the store, what size of detergent, and so on, but basically all of these major brands were in the range of 11 cents per load to 23 cents per load.
Therefore, making home-made laundry detergent is about 10 times cheaper than store-bought!
By paying only 1 cent per load (not including equipment costs), homemade laundry detergent is at least 10 times cheaper than buying cheap store-bought laundry detergent (11 cents a load).
What happens when we account for the extra cost of the equipment (assuming only 1 batch of homemade laundry detergent was made, ever)? This would work out to be 5 cents per load. So even by making homemade laundry detergent once, ever, you are still saving money by only paying 5 cents per load compared to 11 cents per load for store-bought. That is half price!
How much will you save over the course of a year?
How much saved over a year depends on how much laundry you do: the more laundry, the more you save. Let’s assume a family of 4 doing a total of 5 loads of laundry a week. The first batch of homemade laundry detergent costs you 5 cents per load (with setup/equipment costs) and future batches cost you 1 cent per load (ingredients only). By the way, the first batch will last over a year! During the first year the homemade variety will cost $13.00. Remember, this accounts for the cost of your equipment too. Store-bought will cost you $28.60 a year. So you save $15 a year when you make your first batch. Then, after you have gone through the first batch, subsequent batches will only cost $2.60 per year. Compared to store-bought, you will save $26 a year for second or subsequent batches. So, the savings are not vast over the course of a year, but they are there.
The reason the savings are lower than you might expect over the course of an entire year is because the total price of store-bought laundry detergent over a year is low to begin with. Yet, there are benefits beyond just price. It can be more eco-friendly to make your own laundry detergent because you will be re-using your plastic bottles and 5 gallon container, and there will be no chlorine or phosphates.
The bottom line:
A family doing five loads of laundry a week can expect to save $13 per year on their first batch of homemade laundry detergent, and will save $26 a year on second or subsequent batches. Those doing more than 5 loads of laundry each week will save even more. More difficult to quantify is the fact of creating an environmentally friendly product without phosphates or chlorine, and with minimal packaging.
Some families may feel these savings are sufficient reason to switch to making homemade laundry detergent. Other families may feel that the convenience of store-bought outweighs the savings. Each family has to come to its own decision. This article has given those deliberating it a strong idea of the costs involved, at least in the US.
© 2011 Giselle Maine
Have YOUR say in the poll!
Do you plan on making homemade laundry detergent?
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Wow, Giselle! You've done a great job on these details! It will be linked to mine as soon as I post this--thanks!
Informative hub-Thanks!
Hi Flora, making your own laundry detergent is interesting and fun. It is a little bit time-consuming though, but most of that is just the melting of the soap. The rest is easy and fast.
If you do it, remember that the amount you would save depends on how much laundry you do - the values I gave were for a household which does 5 loads of laundry a week. If you do less loads of laundry per week you will save less. But you will still save money, compared to buying store-bought (at least with US pricing - I'm not sure how it compares in Canada). Thanks so much for taking the time to read my hub and vote in the poll!
Hi RTalloni, well, your hub on how to make the detergent gave me the seed of inspiration to write on this separate angle! Thanks for reading and a huge thank you for linking to this hub in yours.
I appreciate your supportive words about the level of detail. The only thing that was a bit of an extra challenge was determining the cost of the amount of borax and washing soda that went into the 5 gallon batch. I had to weigh known volumes of each of these items to figure out the cost, although as I have kitchen scales it wasn't a problem to do it.
It was wonderful to hear from you and thanks again for linking to my hub.
Hi, Helpful Hanna, I'm so glad you found my hub useful. I appreciate you taking the time to comment.
Did you mention how it smells? I don't think I saw anything on it? Is there a scent? And if not can you make your own scent for it? You've got me interested. I hope I make the time to try this out. I'm so lazy these days. Ha!
I used to make my own but then I bought an HE Washer. You can't use homemade in an HE washer. But it is "High Efficiency so you save money in other ways.
Hello Nia, that was a very good question about the smell. Basically it smells slightly of citronella. This is because the Zote soap has citronella in it, and the other ingredients are unscented. It is quite a pleasant smell, in my opinion, but is one simple ‘note’ of fragrance, instead of a complex ‘bouquet’ of fragrance that you often get in the store-bought detergents.
R. Talloni’s recipe also gave the option to add a few drops of a favorite essential oil. Remember this would be in addition to the underlying citronella scent. I opted *not* to do this in my batch of homemade laundry detergent when I heard it smelt OK as is. If you are interested in doing this, you might wish to pop over to R.Talloni’s hub about it for more info on ideal amounts to add.
The citronella smell is so faint that I can’t smell it on the clothes after they have been washed and dried. They just smell kinda fresh and clean. I *can* smell the citronella when I open the detergent container though. Also be warned that the smell is REALLY strong while you are making it, when melting down the bar of Zote soap (just in case you make it sometime and say ‘WHAT was that she told me about just a faint smell?!’). After it is diluted with the other ingredients the smell is much fainter. Like I said, I can’t detect it on the clothes after washing and drying.
Citronella is good. Thanks! I'm gonna follow this so I can remember to do it. :-)
My fiance does the laundry and he buys Tide because everything else makes our son break out... Dante has very delicate skin. What would you suggest for ingredients in my son's case?
Hello Sharon and thanks for stopping by. You have raised an important point. Yes, I have heard you are not supposed to use homemade laundry detergent in HE machines. I’m not sure why because this homemade is low-sudsing just like the HE type. However, I completely agree with you it can be best to err on the side of caution and just not use it if in doubt, as it is possible that one of the ingredients is simply less compatible with HE machines. This point could be of particular concern to those whose HE machines are still under warranty, in case using homemade laundry detergent might void the warranty.
In any case, you are so right that a High Efficiency machine saves money and the environment in other ways: using less water, using less electricity and using a smaller volume of detergent. Thanks for contributing your valuable point here in the discussion, I appreciate it.
Hi Phoebe, sensitive skin can certainly make it more of a challenge for you as parents to find the right product for your son Dante! OK - I did some research into your question. Remember first that skin sensitivities can be so individualized that what one person reacts to, another won’t and vice versa. OK, from my reading, the borax and washing soda when dissolved in the detergent are unlikely to irritate people’s skin, especially in the small quantities that they are used here. The contents of whatever soap you use might irritate, however. In this case, the ingredients of Zote soap are free of petrochemicals and its pH is close to that of skin - a point in its favor. It is extremely natural. However, it *does* have citronella in it. If your son is sensitive or allergic to citronella (and some people are) then you will have to either stick with your storebought Tide, OR make this recipe using a different laundry soap (NOT a bath soap though - these can actually interfere with getting your clothes clean, strange as it may sound). The most common other laundry soap alternative is Fels-Naphtha. On the plus side, it has been used to help calm skin from poison ivy. On the minus side, it does contain petrochemicals. On the official Zote website I read that although it is not originally designed as a bath soap, Zote can be used that way. One possibility would be to test out just a small area of your son’s skin by washing it very gently with a little bit of Zote soap if you can get it cheaply. If this works out well, this may be a win-win situation for everyone as you can then make this homemade laundry detergent for cheap that works for your son’s skin. However, it is still a risk to try this as the poor little guy may react badly to the Zote test - and (mysteriously enough) there is no guarantee that the finished product won’t irritate even if the individual ingredients do not. So there is no ‘easy answer’, sadly. You can test out Zote or Fels-Naptha on a small area of your son’s skin first to see whether he will be OK with that soap, then proceed making the recipe if it’s OK. OR if you want to be really safe you can just stick with storebought Tide, given your son's skin sensitivities.
I love the way you broke everything down! I have read several variations for homemade laundry soap now, and it certainly seems to be a good investment. Thanks for all of the tips and insight!
Hi randomcreative, I'm glad you liked the way I presented the info. Yes, with the equipment prices I had, you definitely will save by making homemade laundry detergent, although how *much* you will save all depends on how much laundry you do per week. It is not that difficult to make and it lasts a really long time. Thanks for stopping by my hub!
I would never have even considered this, but it is a good suggestion for anyone struggling to meet bills at the moment.
Thanks for stopping by, Brett. Yes it does work out cheaper, the more laundry the family does the more they will save per year. I found that it was reasonably easy to make the homemade laundry detergent.
It is actually not cheaper I think, because you put more energy in it than that you gain
Hi Turkic, yes - some people may feel that their time is too valuable and that it is therefore not worthwhile to make homemade laundry detergent. I actually had written something to that effect in the last paragraph. And no, I didn't try to specifically calculate how much time it takes to make the detergent.
So, to sum up, each person has to make their own decision as to whether their investment of time is worthwile compared to the monetary savings.
Personally, I am happy to make the detergent myself to save money and for me this outweighs the inconvenience of making it, but I can see that you would not share the same viewpoint.
I really appreciate you sharing your interesting and different point of view.
I have been told that over time homemade detergent makes clothing look dingy. How would homemade laundry soap make clothing dingy? Have you had that experience with homemade laundry soap?
Hi Rachel, thanks so much for stopping by! That is a great question. Firstly, from my own experience, I have not found the clothing to become dingy - after reading your comment I was curious so I had a good look at my preschooler's white T-shirts (which he wears a lot and which I wash exclusively with the homemade detergent) and they looked bright and white. On the other hand, I have only been using my homemade laundry detergent for about 4 or 5 months, so I wouldn't know one way or another if things became dingy over a longer period of use than just a few months.
However, research I have done on the web indicates that the type of soap used in the homemade laundry detergent can have a big effect. In particular, if you use a bath soap in your laundry detergent (instead of a proper laundry soap like Zote soap) you will definitely get dingy clothes due to the oils in bath soap coming out onto your clothes. This is why Zote soap, a laundry soap, is used in homemade detergent. Also, I didn't add any separate essential oils - some people do, but I was a bit concerned whether it would do anything to the clothes.
So in summary, in my (limited) experience of 4-5 months washing with homemade detergent, the standard recipe made as directed with Zote soap and without any additional fragrances put in, has been working fine and is not dingy. But I wouldn't know if there are any long-term effects beyond 4-5 months.
Thanks so much for your question! It really made me stop and think.
Thank you for researching that. It is greatly appreciated.
Thank you for researching my question. I cannot wait to get started on my homemade laundry detergent. :)
Hi ArmySweetPea, you're most welcome. I also forgot to add that Zote soap contains optical brighteners, so that also probably helps keep whites & colors looking good. I wish you all the best for making your own laundry detergent - it's not too complicated at all.
And there is nothing like the pride of using your very own homemade laundry detergent! My sister designed my labels for me (visible in the pic I included within the hub, just below the cost table) - I simply taped the labels onto the containers using overlapping pieces of clear wide packing tape. If you are a creative type, you may find it fun to design & print out your own laundry bottle labels!
Great hub thanks!!!
Hi ringhistorian, I'm so glad you enjoyed this hub! I appreciate you taking the time to stop by and comment.
Great article. My friend and I started a laundry service from our homes a few years ago. We found a little tip that we use on every load now. White vinegar. Add 3/4 cup into the rinse cycle and it acts as a natural fabric softner, saves money, is eco-friendly, prevents fading and helps keep your washing machine clean.
Hi Amanda, thanks for sharing your tip about white vinegar. It's great to hear of natural products that can be used in the laundry. I appreciate you taking the time to comment.
FloraBreenRobison 6 months ago
I'll have to see if Zote soap is available near where I live in B.C. If so, I will certainly make my own detergent. Because I don't know if the zote soap is handy, I chose "not sure" in the poll. thanks for the link to the recipe.