Making your own laundry powder

Want to make our proven laundry powder formula at home, you can!  Our DIY Laundry pack has all the ingredients and the how to get you on your DIY journey. Super easy and a game changer if you suffer from skin allergies such as eczema.

The key to our laundry powder recipe lies in the fact that is is super concentrated with no fillers or irritating chemicals like degergent, enzymes or optical brighteners – every ingredient is doing its part to clean your clothes without upsetting your skin.  The benefit of a pared back, concentrated powder? You use less powder in each load, your dollar stretches further and you reduce your chemical exposure to the absolute minimum necessary. If you have sensitive skin or are doing babies washing, this is important because the clothes we wear, the towels we dry with and the sheets we sleep in are all washed in laundry powder. Twenty-four seven our skin is exposed to the residues of laundry powder- so the question really is, why wouldn’t you want a chemically conscious laundry powder? We also think that our waterways deserve to be clean and fresh too.

Grab your recipe and let’s go…Start by mixing your dry ingredients; baking soda, washing soda and borax. This can be done in a food processor or bowl. Next you want to add your wet ingredients: Figgy’s Home Cleaning Castile Soap (Our specially formualted pure liquid soap, it’s a grime fighting power house) and if using essential oil for scent, and then evenly combine. Voila you are done! Oh and don’t forget, our laundry powder is suitable for front and top loading washing machines, as well as being grey water and septic tank safe.

Here are our tips:

• Less really is more. One tablespoon is enough for a 6 kg load of washing so adjust accordingly. Overuse can lead to an unnecessarily high residue on your clothes. As with all powders this can be particularly irritating for people with sensitive skin.

• If texture is important to you using a food processor will give you a nice even grain. If you use a bowl to mix, your powder will still clean just as well but may be a bit lumpy and bumpy.

• If you are going to use your food processor why not make multiple batches? Make one batch at a time as to not overload your processor, but for the effort of washing up your powder will last much longer.

• Remember to scrap down the sides of bowl and blades a couple of times- the wet ingredients like to stick to these when they really should be in your powder.

• Add your essential oil to your Castile soap, before adding to your dry ingredients. This will make sure the scent is evenly distributed and cuts down mixing time.

• As with any fine powder (be it non-toxic like baking soda or carcinogenic like asbestos) no dust is good for your lungs. Where possible mix in a well ventilated space, use a tea towel over your processor, and if one is handy wear a dust mask. Likewise wash your hands well afterwards.

• Use essential oils to enhance your laundry powders cleaning power. For example tea tree is a great antiseptic, eucalyptus counters winter bugs, whereas citrus oils like lemon and orange are great degreasers. Or use a scent because you love its aroma, eg: lavender.

• Depending on the speed of your mixing your powder can generate warmth, overmixing makes this worse. Blitz your dry powders first, then mix in your Castile soap and essentail oil. Be sure to let the powder cool entirely to room temp before you store in an airtight container. If not you will end up with something that resembles laundry-powder-concrete!

• Always store your powder in a labelled and air tight container. However if your powder does hardens over time it has not lost any cleaning power. Just break it up with a fork or similar and it is good to go! We have laundry labels too!

• Where possible lengthen the wash cycle and/or increase water temperature to optimise this pared back, low chemical formulation. 30 degree celcius is the coolest you should use to ensure all the laundry powder dissolves optimally.
• This laundry powder is also awesome for bucket soaking heavily soiled items before washing. This is great for pretreating a whole item, like bibs, reusable period items, sports gear and more.

How to start making your laundry powder today

The quickest and easiest way to get started is with our DIY laundry pack. It is all you need to set yourself up for non-toxic laundry washing. You get all the ingredients and instructions to make both Laundry powder and also laundry soaker (an oxygen bleach soaker) and also a bar of Figgy’s cult favourite bar soap that is perfect for pretreating stains without unwanted chemicals. Alternatively, we have all the ingredients needed to purchase separately from our DIY ingredients section of the website. The full recipe for Figgy laundry powder can be found on our here

Let us know how you get on and happy mixing everyone!