Making your own laundry powder: 3 easy steps!
Homemade laundry powder: Tips and tricks to get you started
There are so many good reasons to making your own laundry powder at home. You might be motivated to save money, or cut packaging. It may be that you are on a low-tox journey and are cutting out chemical toxins. Then there is our skin! When you have sensitive skin or Eczema the last thing you want to do is upset or damage your skin with chemical residues on clothing and bedding that are know to irritate.
DIY laundry powder? That’s got to be tricky!
Here at Figgy & Co. we understand that when you first hear about making your own laundry powder, it seems like it could be a bit complicated. We get it! We were new to making our home cleaners once too! So we set out to change that by making DIY cleaning recipes accessible to everyone – our recipes easy to follow and great to use. We’ve also left out any ingredients that are hard to find or just don’t need to be there. No fuss and no fillers, just great DIY making that is effective and comes together quickly!
Can homemade be better than store bought?
Typical laundry detergent is expensive even though the building blocks of laundry powders are the same. Along with the standard ingredients is a long list of complex man-made chemicals to pad out the formulation or ‘enhance’ the experience – many of these enhancements are known to irritate skin, disrupt hormones, damage our waterways or frankly just don’t need to be there – I’m looking at you synthetic fragrances, dyes and optical brighteners. We often here that liquid laundry is best – but two things to remember is when reducing your toxic load liquid laundry detergent has more ingredients in their formulations and Laundry powder is more concentrate giving your better bang for your buck.
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.
What is the best laundry powder for sensitive skin?
The key to the Figgy & Co. laundry powder recipe lies in the fact that it’s super concentrated with no fillers or irritating chemicals. We started with ingredients that were effective at cleaning and safe for you and formulated from there. 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.
Making your own laundry powder
The instructions below go along with the Figgy & Co DIY laundry pack. This pack has instructions and ingredients to make your own laundry powder, laundry soaker and also has Figgy’s bar soap for pre-treating stains naturally.
1. Grab your recipe and gather your supplies:
You’ll need your recipe card & ingredients and an area to do your mixing. A well ventilated space is best. While the ingredients are non-toxic, we think its best to do this when the kids aren’t around – just in case there is some dust.
2. Measure out your ingredients:
Once you have the things you need, you will need to decide if you are going to do the mixing in a bowl with a whisk or food processor (see below for pros and cons).
Start by measuring out the dry ingredients (that’s the washing soda, baking soda and borax) into your bowl or food processor. You can measure by weight using scales or with a measuring cup. You will also want to measure out your castile soap, choose a cup that you can pour slowly from – if you are using essential oils, you can add these into the home cleaning castile soap now.
2. Mix your laundry powder:
Give your dry ingredients a quick mix to combine and so there are no lumps. The next step is to mix the dry ingredients with the castile soap. If you are using a food processor, turn it on then slowly start pouring the castile soap + oils into the spout. You may find it useful to have a teatowel draped over your processor to catch dust. After 30-60 sec of mixing, scrape down the sides, and blitz again.
If you are using a bowl and whisk, pop your bowl on a damp dishcloth, then do the same steps above: mix out the lumps, then slowly add the soap and mix though. It’s OK to add a little soap at a time, and your mix will be more lumpy compared to mixing with the processor – but it will still clean your clothes just as great! It’s only appearances.
You’ve just made laundry powder!
Here are our tips for DIY laundry powder:
- Food processor Vs bowl & whisk: If texture is important to you using a food processor will give you a nice even grain and it will come together more quickly. 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.
- 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 essential oil. Be sure to let the powder cool entirely to room temp before you store in an airtight container.
- 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 mix in a well ventilated space, use a tea towel over your processor, and if one is handy wear a dust mask. As with any fine powder (be it non-toxic like baking soda or carcinogenic like asbestos) your lungs don’t want to breathe it in. Likewise wash your hands well afterwards.
- 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.
- 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.
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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.
- When you cut out chemicals you may need to lengthen the wash cycle and/or increase water temperature to make up the balance. To get the most out of this pared back, low chemical formulation use 30 degree water as a minimum and choose a longer cycle or incorporate a pause or soak. Warm water helps remove dirt, and it also ensures all the laundry powder dissolves quickly and properly during your wash.
- This laundry powder is also awesome for bucket soaking heavily soiled items before washing. This is great for pre-treating items like bibs, reusable period items, sports gear etc.
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 pre-treating 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 along with our other DIY cleaning recipes can be found in our recipe booklet
Let us know how you get on and happy mixing everyone!
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