Homemade Laundry Detergent?

I’ve been rather dissatisfied with my laundry detergent lately.  I started out using Purex Free and Clear and that was fine, if unremarkable.  I tried regular Tide for a while before I switched to the “Seven Signs” Tide (the one in the orange bottle).  And that worked fine too.  But lately I’ve grown frustrated with stains.  I don’t have stink problems, I have STAIN problems.  Something is going on with my little ones, Evie mostly, and she is a little poop MACHINE these days.  It must be teething.  She went from pooping every two days or so to going several times a day, sometimes as often as every couple of hours!  Oh the stains!

I know that sunning works wonders but we lack a decent clothesline out in our backyard and with the way the winds pick up in the afternoon around here, diapers have a way of blowing halfway around my yard if I’m not careful.  Sunning, for now, is a last resort.  I’d love it if I could have a detergent that gets me halfway there and is great at removing stains.

There are things you can do before you even toss a dirty diaper in the pail to help combat stains.  For one, using liners helps a LOT.  I have a pile of strips of fleece I’ve cut that I lay on top of the fitted soakers.  Most of the mess ends up on the fleece (where it easily washes off) and less on the diaper.  Another step is to spray the diaper off in the toilet.  I admit to being a little lazy about doing this.  Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t.  But spraying off the bulk of the “mess” does wonders.  It saturates the diaper so that messes don’t dry onto the fabrics and it removes a good majority of the mess at the same time.  Another thing you can do is spray the diaper with Bac-Out or another stain fighting yet diaper solution (a simple search on Diaper Swappers yields a bevy of personal recipes for such things!).  This is one thing I would really like to try and will as soon as I have time to sit down and look at my options!

Still… I’ve heard wonderful things about homemade laundry detergents.  Looking around on Hyena Cart, you can find dozens of shops that sell homemade detergents to solve all your laundry woes.  And a lot of these detergents are not only safe for diapers, but recommended!  I’ve put off trying some for a long time, thinking there’s no way they could work as well as my Tide.

I’ve received some samples of WAHM made detergents in several of my orders lately so this last week I tried a few.  And.. I’m pretty impressed!  Impressed enough that I looked into the different detergents to see if there was one that was recommended above others.  I found a great one on Diaper Swappers that comes highly recommended.  Her shop there is called “Earthy Products”.  I put an order in last week for detergent, pail deodorizer (something we DESPERATELY need these days!) and a dryer sachet that will safely and pleasantly scent the diapers while in the dryer.  I’ve heard great things about her products and I can’t wait to try them out!  I will be sure to give a good run down here on my experience.

In the meantime, have any of you tried homemade laundry detergent?  Either for cloth diapers or for regular laundry?  What are your experiences? Share with the class!