Homemade Natural Laundry Detergent

Are you looking for ways to live a greener life? Reduce your carbon footprint? Or to simply save a few bucks?

I was, too. I shouldn’t say ‘was’, because I’m continually striving to become better in each of those categories.

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A couple of years ago, my husband and I were back home in Washington state visiting friends and family. We try to make it a point to visit during the month of October because of one thing: apple season. That’s another post in itself. On one of our many ritualistic walks around the neighborhood of a family member, we came across a very full and mature buckeye tree. Before this day, I had honestly never heard of buckeyes. I’d seen the nuts used as fall decoration in various homes, but knew nothing about them. My my husband recollected stories of his childhood, collecting many buckeyes (or also known as horse chestnuts) for his mom to place around the house. We began collecting them and brought a few back with us to the house we were staying at.

A casual google search after dinner lead me to some interesting but limited information about the uses of the horse chestnut. They are widely known to be poisonous to people and should NOT be ingested. Various parts of the tree have a history of medicinal uses. But the one thing that caught my eye was the word saponin. I did not know what that meant, so I did some more research and discovered saponin has a foaming quality and plants containing that compound were an early source of detergents and soaps for various cultures around the world. Cool, right??

Flash forward a day and I was out on the back porch smashing the newly gathered buckeyes with a hammer and collecting the softer, white interior. That is the part of the nut that contains the saponins. Soak it in water, shake it. What do you get? SUDS! Bubbly, wonderful suds.

Basically, I was ecstatic. I had foraged a free source of soap.

I have not had to buy laundry soap for over 2 years. Saving a few bucks? Check.

Reducing my carbon footprint and living a greener life by not buying manufactured detergents? Check and check.

Would you like to learn how to make your own laundry detergent via saponin-containing buckeyes? Good thing you’re here.

Ask around your local gardeners/neighbors/farmers/friends/community to see if anybody has a buckeye or horse chestnut tree in your town. No luck? Don’t worry, there are sources online you can buy from.

The best time to collect them is mid fall. That is when the buckeyes are mature and the trees naturally drop them. Be careful as you collect them though, the outer shells are very poky!

It’s best to crush the nuts as soon as possible after collecting them. They get very hard as they dry and it’s almost impossible to crack them open at that point.

Collect the white interior of the nuts. You can set them out on a cookie sheet or tray and let them dry for a few weeks in order to store them.

To make the detergent (for a normal-sized load of laundry):

Scoop a few nuts worth of the pieces into a glass container (I like to use jars)

If you are needing to do laundry the same day, cover the pieces with about a 1/2 cup of hot water. If you are doing laundry the next day, water temperature does not matter.

Let sit for at least 30 minutes.

It is ready when it looks milky. Strain the pieces out, set them aside to use again 2 or 3 times, and use the detergent as you would any other!

It’s best to make the detergent no more than a week in advance. It does not store well after a week. If you do have leftovers, store in the fridge.

How cool is this? A totally plant-based homemade laundry detergent. I like to add a few drops of my favorite essential oils if I’m looking for a scented load, but it is not necessary.

Let me know if you have ever tried this before, or if you plan to try it NOW! Drop any questions below.

Until next time,

Becca