Your results may vary..... From personal experience, it's not as simple as the cost factor alone. Although this, and similar mixtures (both dry and liquid versions) are generally very cost effective, there are other "costs" you need to take into consideration than just the price of the ingredients due to cause and effect. Not everyone has great results using homemade mixtures, especially the longer you use them and if you have hard water. These are things I experienced when using homemade laundry mixtures on-and-off over the last 25-years, and things I learned when I studied the science of soap and detergents and what was happening to my laundry when using it. Using it for one wash, one week, or even one month isn't a good test. See how things go after using it for 3-months or more. 1. This formula is missing a lot of chemical ingredients you've enjoyed in your commercial detergents, such as: corrosion inhibitors, enzymes, whiteners/brighteners, surfactant formulations that reduce foam, and chelating agents (bind things together) that are found in commercial detergents. What this means is after prolonged use of the homemade mixtures you may find the life of your clothing diminishes, it doesn't clean as well, your clothes are stiff when you line-dry them, and numerous other possible issues. This is why detergent was overwhelmingly chosen for laundry over old-fashioned soap products after WWII when all these chemicals were formulated. Detergents just worked better than soap, and these formulas are changing all the time to keep up with today's laundry needs. 2. $$$ If you use ZOTE (a bar soap formulated for laundry) instead of Fels Naptha, not only will you save money (ZOTE is 90-cents at Big Lots and it doesn't take the whole bar for a batch of laundry soap), it also has some brighteners (bluing agents) in the bar that will aid in keeping whites looking white better than Fels Naptha. Fels Naptha, which once contained Stoddard Solvent - a great cleaning agent, was removed years ago because it turns out it's pretty toxic stuff. Fels Naptha was basically used as a pre-wash (wet the bar and rubbed directly on stains), rather than as a laundry soap. I believe Stoddard Solvent is used in dry-cleaning chemicals. Most people used homemade lye soap for laundry and Fels Naptha for pretreating. 3. The ingredients used in these mixtures may NOT be good for your washing machine, and may actually diminish the life of it. There are reports that washing soda and Borax can damage washing machines. If you have an HE washing machine, check with the manufacturer for information about using homemade laundry detergent mixtures. Some of the bar soap products people use in the mixtures have fat in them that can build-up in the washer drum and cause that awful stinky smell and black mold growth front-loaders are famous for. This happened to a friend who used Oil of Olay in the mixture because she had sensitive skin and it was the only soap that didn't bother her. She had to replace her machine because of black mold. Use of a homemade product may cancel your warranty, so be sure to check. Washing machines aren't cheap compared to the cost difference in soap and detergent. 4. For optimal cleaning performance with homemade mixtures use hot water for the wash cycle to give you the best cleaning for whites and heavily soiled clothes. If you are going back to pre-WWII laundry products, you will get better results using the prescribed hot water that went along with their use, and you may also benefit from soaking some heavily-soiled items overnight. So use the hottest water possible for each fabric type for optimal cleaning. By using hot water, that will increase the cost of utilities, but will also increase the performance of the soap mixture. If you normally use cold water for washing and your cold water is really cold in the winter (65-degrees F or colder), the soap mixture will not activate and clean effectively. Cold water detergents are formulated for use in cold water, and detergent manufacturers define cold water as 80-85-degrees F. Some washing machines actually mix hot water with cold to achieve this temperature for the wash cycle, even when it's set on "cold". Wet clothes aren't necessarily "clean" clothes. Your soap or detergent needs to perform that first 5-minutes of the wash cycle in order to clean well. 5. If you have hard water you may find you need to use more than the normal 2 T. per load to get your clothes clean. More is needed for extra-large loads as well as extra dirty loads. You may need as much as 1/2-cup at times. You may need to add an oxygen-type cleaner (Oxi-Clean or Sun from the Dollar General) to the dry mix or add it to the laundry if using the liquid version, to aid performance. With each add-in or larger amount needed to do each load, the cost increases. 6. You are now using a soap-based product. Soap reacts with minerals in the water and can leave soap scum residue. You may find you need an extra rinse or need to chemically soften your water (Calgon or vinegar in the rinse, or a whole house water softener) in order to avoid soap scum build-up. That adds to the cost of use. Soap scum will eventually cause your whites to yellow or gray, and light colors will look dingy. If you line-dry your clothes they will be stiff because of the soap scum build-up. Dried soap scum build-up is like leaving sandpaper in your fabrics. It will actually be abrasive and reduce the life of your clothing, and can actually cause holes in fabrics. It can also cause skin outbreaks for anyone who may be sensitive to this soap residue in fabrics. If you launder cloth diapers in homemade laundry mixtures, it may contribute to diaper rash and will reduce the absorbancy of fabrics. You may find your clothing doesn't wear well or may wear-out sooner than they once did. 7. When I used these formulas years ago I would have to switch to regular detergent about every 3 months to remove the soap scum build-up and to brighten the clothes again. This is because of our extremely hard water. It worked best when I had a whole-house water softener unit. Eventually I was increasing the add-ins and using softener, so I really wasn't saving money at all. Especially since our clothes weren't lasting as long. 8. Off-season clothing would smell acrid/rancid after being in storage from the fats found in the bars of soap used for the mixtures. All off-season clothing had to be laundered before they could be used again because of this smell. 9. It takes several washings to remove your old detergent from your clothing, and then a couple months of using the homemade version to really show it's true results. I'd give it three months trial and see if you notice a real difference. Keep some "samples" for comparison. Save back a washcloth, a white T-shirt, etc., to compare before and after. 10. If you are laundering baby and children's clothing, homemade mixtures may destroy the fire-retardant coatings on fabrics. Charlie's Soap, which is what I use now, has been shown in testing to improve the the flamH retardant properties after each washing to the point where the fabric would not catch fire at all. No other detergent tested improved the flame retardant properties of children's sleepwear at all. Just some things to consider.... -Grainlady

First I will adress the stiffness: Powdered detergent contains a lot of sodium carbonate, powders really should only be used in hot or very warm do to carbonates being troubelsome in rinsing out, even in hot water carbonates can be the real dickins to completely rinse out, be sure the rinse water looks and feels clean...Tide uses zeolites and carbonates both will make fabrics stiff if not properly rinsed, Miele I'm not sure if it has zeolites but one thinks it does. However IMO powders still give the best cleaning with clay soils as liquid is better for grease/ oils...maybe your overdosing without realizing it? I sure do OFTEN. Stpp should be very helpful with the carbonates issue. Storage: I use those space saving bags that you use a vac to suck the air out, and store my stash in a closet away from kitchen and bathrooms, I usually leave enough of each out for a month or so in containers, remember after opening a box use mailing tape to tape the box closed before doing a space bag lol or you will extract more than air haha. Believe it or not lol..I love the scent of Miele whites and colors even more than original tide. As far as using a whites detergent on darks or colors, it will cause fading maybe not right away, but it will. Oxygen Bleach was designed for whites, some people use it on colors and darks with good luck but eventually it will fade, if you choose to try I advise warm water and not hot. I will touch more on this later..lol

Update: washed my bath towels lastnight with Sunlight, 1 oz Sodium percarbonate, and STPP, water temp 132 deg f....I used Downy Free and after drying I put some lemon essential oil on an old clean cloth and tumbled No Heat for 10 minutes. The towels are still white lol..they look and feel soft and fluffy. They smell like fresh crisp lemon. So this worked nicely at least on towels that had no tattle tale grey. This morning I washed a load of jeans; water temp 125deg f..with Sears Plus Powder and STPP.....in the rinse I added just about 2 Tablespoons Members Mark FS. Again the jeans are clean and smell fresh with just the right amount of softness, I don't like overly softened jeans. Currently I have black jeans that hubs wears to work, (retired but works) he works at a auto parts so often gets grease and oil on his clothes, I did a warmish-more cool prewash with Sears powder. Now they are washing, water temp about 130 and I used Tandil Premium detergent liquid, and STPP. They just started agitation so it will be awhile. Stay tuned LOL

Limiting to 2 tablespoons of detergent is not a hard-fast rule. Depends on a myriad of factors including water hardness, soil level, load size, amount of water (a deep-fill Bulky cycle will reasonably take more detergent than a low-HE fill level cycle). Ammonia, detergent of any type, and Biz powder surely can be combined, but DO NOT put the powder into a detergent dispenser with any liquids. Put the powder product(s) directly into the tub and liquids in the dispenser. Dosing sudsy ammonia (vs. non-sudsy) can be tricky because of the sudsing factor, which is less controllable than detergent sudsing. Biz can also promote some sudsing. Biz can be used alone, it has some function as a detergent, I've done that a couple times on pillows or items that need a blast of stain treatment. Not unusual that I use 4 tablespoons of Biz plus detergent for a super-grungy load, or more Biz than that for a Biz-only blast treatment. I find that a temp of 120°F to 125°F and up does the trick for me on pillow cases darkened from sweaty/oily hair. I don't have any down-filled items ... but I washed a friend's down comforter a couple times. The last time, several years ago (before she died), I blasted it with oxy-bleach (I hadn't yet rediscovered Biz at the time) and HOT water, twice. It came out white. I thought it was a cream color, had never seen it white. She said it was originally white. She was a heavy smoker ...