DIY Non-Toxic Powder Laundry Detergent (Cloth Diaper Safe!) with Young Living Essential Oils | Purification and Lemon (2)

54 Comments

  1. Have been using this recipe for years. Cant remember when I got chemically laden laundry soap.
    1 cup arm & hammer power detergent
    1 cup oxi clean
    ½ bar fels naptha (next to arm/ hammer soap)
    1 cup 20 mule team borax
    1 cup baking soda
    1 cup your favorite smelling laundry crystals
    Use 3-4 tsp each load, lasts 6 months or more and gets load smelling fresh and sparkling clean. Grind up the fels naptha in the blender. Takes about 10 seconds

  2. anyway to print just the recipe? gonna give it a whirl…want to stop putting all those toxins in my body!!!

  3. I have read that Epsom salts actually create hard water and that using ice cream salts help soften the water and your laundry. What results have you found?

    1. ohhhh I’d love to know more about Ice cream salts and hard water! we have super HARD water – thanks for the heads up

  4. I’m on my second batch and love the cleaning results; however I have noticed a film on the inside of my washing machine and the dispenser. It’s a HE front loader, have you experienced this?

      1. I have run a cleaning cycle and it did clean it, guess I’ll just have to remember to do it every now and then. After I wrote I did think that it may have occurred now after having my college kids home doing wash, they tend to use too much! ( least they do their own wash!!)

    1. I would just add Vinegar and liquid peroxide to your laundry along with the detergent and those should also help the powder completely dissolve and help sanitize as you go.

  5. The borax is not non-toxic. It also has an F rating from EWG.org, with the most serious concerns being developmental and reproductive toxicity. Do you have an alternative to this ingredient? I see you say you can omit it, how would this effect the detergent? I can’t seem to find any DIY laundry detergents that don’t use borax.

    1. I’m sorry, but EWG is going to find fault with everything. Borax is a naturally occurring mineral and if you want to make cleaning products that actually work, then there are times you’re going to have to use ingredients that don’t grow on trees. Borax is a great alternative for the crap that Big Business puts in their pretty containers to entice us to buy.

      1. This is a problem people see something and who ever is reporting it must be correct. while I did some checking and foud out the study done on mice was flawed they were fed 5000 mg of Borax over a short periond of time that comes out to .29 of the weight of the mouse I took 17G of weight for the mouse. Using the same for a 120 pound human came out to 34 pound in the same time frame! But we are not talking about eating Borax it is being adsorb thru the skin and studies have shown that it would take a lot of Borax to cause any health effect on a human and how much are we talking here 1 cup used and how much is exposed to the skin a Mg or even a Gr I would suspect that the amount adsorb throu the skin would be in the micro-grams and that amount is not enough to cause any health problems.

    2. While I hate to disagree with the study in mice I did do some research and found they were give around 5000 Mg of Borax (Force Fed). that comes out to you eating 34 pounds over the same period. We are not talking about absorption thru the skin. Which Borax has a very low rate So low the EPA does not require it to be reported! I have attached links to different articles on this subject.

      https://crunchybetty.com/getting-to-the-bottom-of-borax-is-it-safe-or-not/

      https://wellnessmama.com/26407/borax-safe/

      http://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2016/59514a-eng.php

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax

  6. Is this safe to use in a food processor you use in your kitchen? Does it make a difference if you skip that step?

  7. Hi Molly! Thanks so much for posting this recipe. I made a batch last night and am super excited to give it a whirl! When I was looking for recipes online, most of the powder ones call for using a bar of soap. Would you mind explaining why you chose not to use this ingredient in your recipe? Do you feel it is not necessary?

  8. Do you use this on delicates also? I tend to wash some items that say to dry clean, but I wash them on a delicate cycle in cold water and wondered if this laundry detergent would still be safe on them.

    1. Hmmm I don’t wash anything that says dry clean (I sometimes use Dryel)… I am honestly not sure. I mean, it’s pretty delicate (this detergent), but I don’t want to tell you it’s okay and then it end up messing up.

    1. personally, I would not… only because you don’t know what they’ve used to scent the epsom salt (a lot of times it’s a harsh chemical fragrance that could affect your clothing). this is why i used the essential oils i did. but i think it’s just personal comfort / choice.

    2. Angie, I have a glass canning jar half full of epsom salts. I’ve been throwing my used Young Livining oil container in there to “soak up” any residual oils before I wash them out and re-use. (Waste not, want not!) The scent is beautiful! I can’t remember all the jars in there, but there’s peppermint, thieves, Christmas, and Lavender. I’m going to use Molly’s recipe and put in my scented Epsom salts. 🙂

  9. So if I use gain original powder for my cloth diapers, will I have to strip them before washing them with this detergent? Really hoping I can use this with no issues!!

    Thanks!

  10. So tell me about the epsom salt, what is it for? Like does it do something special to the laundry? Also, does adding the oils to dry detergent make it a weird consistency? Or do you just throw the drops in and stir it around?

    1. Hey Jessica! The epsom salt is an emulsifier and works to lift stains. And the oils doesn’t do anything to the consistency of the detergent because there’s only a few drops. I added it before I blended it all together in the food processor and it mixed right in. 🙂

  11. Love it! I’ve been making my powder detergent for a while and just a couple weeks ago I started making liquid detergent. Right now I’m on a peppermint/lavender oil kick 🙂

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