Making homemade laundry detergent powder

[CocoPalmelle]

I've made laundry detergent powder as an experiment and feedback so far is that it's okay but it could be more bubbly and the soap chunks be more dissolve-y.

My recipe is this:
420 grams of diy soap (1% superfat, 65% palm oil, 35% coco oil, hot process, used only NaOH as a lye)
1 840 g borax
1 580 g baking soda
1 560 g washing soda

I was following the recipe of faith and flour, up in youtube.
It was suggested to me by DeeAnna (thank you very much btw) that I could cut costs just by removing borax and baking soda from the recipe. Can anyone help me with making the powder bubblier and dissolve-y?

It was recommended to me that I should use a surfactant like CFAS (Coco Fatty Alcohol Sulfate) or AOS (Alpha Olefin Sulfonates) but by how much if they do work?

 

[DeeAnna]

You want to grind the soap into a powder that is as fine as possible. I want the soap particles to look like coarse ground pepper, no bigger. I have to use a food processor to get that.

You would also want to use more coconut oil or palm kernel oil to get a more soluble soap. Palm oil (not palm kernel) makes a relatively insoluble soap compared with palm kernel and coconut.

The laundry water should be warm to hot, not cold. Or pre-dissolve the soap in warm/hot water if you must wash in cold.

You can certainly use synthetic surfactants (soap is a not-synthetic surf, by the way). One problem with this idea is many syndets are liquids, and you're wanting to make a powdered product, so you'd have to find a syndet that is in powdered form. Not impossible, but it does limit your choices. Also syndets can often be more expensive than soap and harder to obtain. Last but not least, if a "more natural" laundry detergent is your goal, syndets don't qualify as "more natural" in most people's minds.

Oh, forgot to add --

A laundry detergent shouldn't create lots of bubbles. You want the cleanser to rinse out of the clothing as easily as possible. Lots of lather is hard to rinse out of fabric.

Soap won't ever lather as well as synthetic detergents in the wash water. The main reason for this is soap reacts with hard water minerals to make soap scum, not lather. That's why you can't just wash laundry with soap alone -- you have to add a ph adjuster and a water softener to the water so soap can function properly. That's the purpose of washing soda or borax.

 

[CocoPalmelle]

Oh, forgot to add --

A laundry detergent shouldn't create lots of bubbles. You want the cleanser to rinse out of the clothing as easily as possible. Lots of lather is hard to rinse out of fabric.

Soap won't ever lather as well as synthetic detergents in the wash water. The main reason for this is soap reacts with hard water minerals to make soap scum, not lather. That's why you can't just wash laundry with soap alone -- you have to add a ph adjuster and a water softener to the water so soap can function properly. That's the purpose of washing soda or borax.

Well, for my country, Philippines, we really love our bubbles according to a market study done by P&G. Not only that, most of the water in the Philippines is considered safe but it's really hard water.

Speaking of which, regarding food processors, my soaps tend to melt and clump up because of the friction to the point to processor gets stuck. I suppose I just need to process the soap slower but would you have any other suggestions? I was thinking another way could be making a low salt bar soap to increases hardness for easier processing?

 

[DeeAnna]

"...we really love our bubbles according to a market study done by P&G. ... water in the Philippines is ... really hard water...."

I may easily like bubbles as well or better than you do. But I like bubbles in my bath, not in the washing machine.

Detergent foam doesn't rinse out of fabrics easily. If you use so much detergent that you get lots of foam, there will be more soap residue in your clothing. That can make fabrics feel harsh and stiff and the residues can irritate skin. Why would you want that?

I suspect you may want to stick to synthetic detergents, not soap, since the lack of lather and soap scum seem to be large problems for you.

"...would you have any other suggestions? ..."

Process with another powder such as the washing soda. Let the soap dry more before processing it into a powder. Don't process it as long, so the soap doesn't get as warm and sticky. Any or all of the above.

"...making a low salt bar soap to increases hardness for easier processing? ..."

Low salt? Please explain what you mean by that. I don't see any salt listed in your Post #1.

 

[CocoPalmelle]

I may easily like bubbles as well or better than you do. But I like bubbles in my bath, not in the washing machine.

I forgot to take into account cultural differences. Many people here can't afford washing machines and thus stick to handwashing.

Process with another powder such as the washing soda. Let the soap dry more before processing it into a powder. Don't process it as long, so the soap doesn't get as warm and sticky. Any or all of the above.

When you say process with another powder, so add washing soda to the soap batter? Or did you while I place the soap chunks in the food processor, I also add washing soda to the chunks.

Low salt? Please explain what you mean by that. I don't see any salt listed in your Post #1
I wasn't clear, apologies. I meant next time I make soap specifically for laundry, I'll add salt similar to Soleseife to make a hardier bar.

 

[hanaherrera]

A laundry detergent shouldn't create lots of bubbles. You want the cleanser to rinse out of the clothing as easily as possible. Lots of lather is hard to rinse out of fabric.

I'm currently looking for material about laundry detergents and planning to formulate one that we can use. The cost for laundry detergent liquids, and even the powders have gone up so much now that I'd prefer to make my own, and also to at least have some control over what goes in my product.

On YouTube, Elly's Everyday Soapmaking has created workable laundry detergent formulas that I might follow one of these days. Ellen Ruth also has one formula that incorporates sodium percarbonate in her cold process 100% with zero fat coconut oil soap, sodium tetraborate, sodium carbonate, and sodium bicarbonate. Cory, the owner of Sunshine Soap and Candle Company has syndet based liquid formulas in some of her videos, and one of these days, I may try those too, especially that I already have the same liquid surfactants on hand (coco glucoside, decyl glucoside, cocamidopropyl betaine, except for sodium lauryl ether sulfate -- which scares me, or is that just a myth?)

I understand what DeeAnna is saying here and believe that good detergency doesn't necessarily mean opulent bubbles. I'm from the Philippines too but I'm not really looking for a high foam formula. Just one that effectively cleans. I use a top load washer and so, detergents with copious foam will use too much water and will be difficult to rinse out.

But if you're still here and want a syndet based powder formula that you can experiment with, I have one after purchasing a DIY detergent kit I bought online. I bought it just to compare the formula with the ones that I found from research and to compare ingredients, and ratios.

So, the kit that I bought should make about 10kg of powder detergent. Shockingly, the actives are but a small percentage of the formula! What makes up bulk of the formula is sodium sulfate, a filler and desiccant, which is at 9kg.... The one from my notes said fillers should just be up to 40% max in formulas... I don't understand fillers being at 90%. Anyway here are the ingredients:

Dry Ingredients

Coco fatty alcohol sulfate (CFAS) - 300g​

Speckles (sodium sulfate + sodium silicate + carboxymethyl cellulose) - 84g​

Palmfonate methyl ester sulfonate - 200g​

Soda ash (sodium carbonate) - 393g​

Sodium sulfate (Glauber's salt) - 9,000g​

​

Liquid Ingredients - 23g

Sodium olefin sulfate solution (percent dilution was not given)​

Linear alkylbenzene sulfonic acid​

Fragrance​

I haven't mixed these yet so I can't tell how much cleansing they are, but I'm guessing it won't be foamy because there is just too much salt that it'll kill whatever suds are produced. And there are ingredients that I'm not particularly intent on using... but for experiment's sake, I will scale this down just to see detergency...