While I was playing around online the other day, I stumbled upon recipes used by the Duggar Family (they have a show on TLC called "18 and Counting"). Anyway, I skimmed through them and wasn't all that interested until I saw one for Homemade Laundry Detergent.

I had never tried anything like that before, so this time I did...and it works like a charm! I did the optional tip and put drops of essential oil in the mix, so it smells great, and I can't imagine how long it's going to take me to go through this batch. It's so cheap!

Here's the recipe for liquid detergent:

4 cups of hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar (you can also use other bars, as long as they are unscented. I used a Zote bar.)
1 cup washing soda (they recommend Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda, but I used generic washing soda and it works fine)
1/2 cup borax

Grate the bar of soap into a deep saucepan and add the 4 cups of water. Heat the soap, stirring constantly, until it's dissolved into liquid.

Fill a five-gallon bucket halfway with hot tap water and add the liquid soap, the washing soda, and the borax. Stir it all very well, until the powder has dissolved. Then add more hot tap water until the bucket is nearly full. Cover it and let it sit overnight.

The next day, scoop some of the detergent into a clean detergent dispenser. (I used an old Tide bottle I had rinsed out.) Fill the detergent dispenser half-full of water and shake that baby hard to mix it all.

If you have a top-load machine, use about 1/2 cup. If you have a front-loading machine, use about a 1/4 cup.

You can add essential oil to the soap after it is in the bucket and cooled. I used lemongrass essential oil, and it worked to make it smell very fresh and clean.

Here's the best part: The recipe eventually equals 10 gallons of liquid detergent. Buying one gallon of name-brand detergent at the store usually runs about 12 bucks, maybe a bit less, depending on the type.

This particular recipe winds up costing about five dollars...and you get 10 gallons!

I will never go back to regular laundry detergent again.

I found the recipe here: http://www.duggarfamily.com/recipes.html

This is oh-so-awesome, and I am one happy little laundry maven right now!