powdered laundry detergent cold wash only?

[Bubblingbrooks]

Here is mine...

12 cups Borax
12 cups Washing Soda
2 cups Baking soda
4 bars grated Fels Naptha

I grate the soap, add some of the powderes and run it through the food processor or blender till its fine.
Then mix all together in a garbage bag.
Then I put it in two square glass gallon jars. WalMart carries those.
One goes in the cupboard, and the other on top of my dryer.
I keep a stainless steel 4 tsp measure in it, and use just 3 tsp per load.
2 if things are real dirty.

 

[Leta]

I've used a bunch of different soaps, and they have all worked, even in cold.
I put generic Oxyclean in mine, too, in equal proportion with the washing soda.
I also use the food processor blade to grind the soap up.

I make mine once a year, put it in a 5 gallon bucket with a gamma seal lid on it, and use the OxyClean scoop as my measure. Once we went to a front loader, it seemed to work better in cold, but I might be nuts.

 

[Kingsfarm]

Thank you all... JRmom...am adding one more bar of Octagon soap to equal measurements....next batch will be a LARGE one thank you bubblingbrooks for sharing. my friend wants my receipe .. will give her both....Yea....another to add to my receipe box of home made products, will make one for each of our daughters (5) for their households for Christmas...We all need to be frugal and helpful in these days to come.... Thank you for being my friends....G No suds visable but better for machine I gather.....

 

[Britesea]

I've used both the dry and wet versions and I agree, the dry takes less space, and is faster to make. I found the Zote was a little too soft for the dry (didn't powder as well) so if I use it again I will first expose the bar to air to dry it out a little more.
We have really hard well water, but can't afford a softener, so I just add a handful of the water softener pellets to each load of laundry. I use the potassium chloride since we run our greywater out to the wild rose hedge running along the back of our property (they love it!)

So far, all the homemade cleaning products I've tried have been very satisfactory except the hand dishwashing detergent-- it just wasn't cutting the grease unless I used huge amounts of it. The recipe I used was : 2 cups of soap flakes, 1 gallon of warm water, 2 tablespoons of glycerin (optional), 1/2 cup of lemon juice or white vinegar. Does anyone have a different formula that they are happy with?