Homemade Laundry Detergent Like Your Grandmother Used (2024)

LOVE your blog! Especially the simple living and “old time” ways. Quick question, does the above laundry recipe dissolve in cold water?

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With five youngins I have no idea how they kept up with laundry if they limited it to one day! Honestly my kids dirty clothes up so fast and we have a closet full whereas they probably only had a couple of outfits each. Throw cloth diapers onto that and I just see don’t see how one day washing was done. I have two in diapers and with line drying them I have to do a load every day in order to have enough. I desire simplicity with my washer machine still intact 🙂 Thanks for sharing the recipe. I need to make a batch up.

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Need to make another batch of laundry soap. My best ‘hack’ for it is to use an old food processor (cheap from the thriftshop) to grate the hard bar of soap. Not sure what my great grandmother would say about that, but it was my grandmother that wore pantyhose before I switched to them (many years ago)!! My grandmothers knew a good thing, and were more modern in their homemaking than I tend to be!

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I watched my grandmother do wash in a wringer washer. How she heated the water on stove and carried the water to the washer on the porch. My grand father painted and they had a huge big pot outside on a camp fire and they were boiling his paint clothes to get the paint off.
I remember her large long clothes line with sheets in front and personable’s in back so not seen from the road. Behind the clothes line was a huge garden she did every year. She lived on the edge of town. Had an outhouse out the back door a little rock cement walk to it. It was the cleanest outhouse I have ever seen. She made the best large sugar cookies I ever ate. But today I can still see those sheets blowing in the breeze and the garden and the strawberry patch-all in the back yard. You could see the rail road from the house and I once saw her feed a hobo a plate of food placed outside the back door. He had come and asked for some food. Memories I cherish.

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I used a ringer washer and line dried up until 1978. A washer board for the heavy soiled socks and there was NO hot water. Heck there was no wash room! The ringer washer was kept on the porch under a tarp. Winter washing was on days above 32 degrees and everything was hung in the house and dried by the wood stove. I had a baby then, washed & dried all her cotton cloth diapers this way and there were a few times (more than a few) I ran short on fabric softener. But I wasn’t as “bad” as my mom, she washed and line dried everything. Then all the clothes had to be re-sprinkled with water, rolled up and put into a bag for next days “Ironing day”. Everything was ironed and all dresses, shirts, hankies and dad’s Navy dress whites were starched and ironed. I remember when “polyester” clothes came out. Mom thought she had died and gone to heaven.

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I had to hand wash for 4 months. I can’t lie, it was rough because I accidentally packed my wringer and had to do it by hand. That was the most challenging! Love your posts as always Tracy! Thank you for linking up with us at the Art of Home-Making Mondays! 🙂

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Nice article, thank you so much for the share

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I very often think about this! I’m fascinated by the old ways of doing things. But I agree, I won’t be getting rid of my washing machine any time soon.

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Tracy I enjoy reading your articles. I have washed clothes by hand. I watched a video on Youtube. It was hard. I only did my undies, shirts, washcloths and a pair of pants. It was a challenge. I could not imagine doing a blanket or sheet. Your website has been an inspiration for me. I am a widow and life alone. So I CHOOSE to live a simple life. I am challenged in getting a routine going. Plus cutting off the cable television. But I find myself watching television and not getting anything done. Thank you for articles and encouragement.

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Oh I wanted to add my favorite memory with my Grandparents. My grandmother had a garden next to the house and I remember picking the vegetables and fruit and canning them. I remember milking the cows and taking it inside. My grandmother would separate the cream and I would use the butter churn to make butter. Everything was homemade. I would gather the eggs from the chickens and I would scare them out of the laying place to get the eggs. My grandmother would get so made at me. I that we were total self sufficient. She had a wring out washing the machine It was an all day chore. I loved the simple, hard work but accomplished feeling afterwards.

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I seriously want to hand wash clothes for the fun of it if I could! I live in an apartment. I would do it outdoors if I had a garden hose hook up 🙂 Found you via the Motivation Monday link up. Subscribing to you.

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People used to want to get out of the country and move to the city where they had electricity and life was easier. My great grandmother did just that. Out in the country they froze and starved. In the city there was food at the store and heat in a house. My Dad talks about living in a tar paper shack and waking up with ice on his face.

My great grandmother despised the country so much that she wouldn’t even be buried in the family cemetery but had to be buried “in town”.

But I love it, I have farming in my blood and I definitely love to work hard. I put the laundry on the line, make everything from scratch, grow from seed, wear only homemade clothes, and generally try to do without spending because there is no money.

We romanticize doing without only because we have so much.

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As I sit here at my work desk after having spent close to an hour commuting, and I anticipate the coming meetings I don’t want to attend…all to earn a paycheck that goes toward mortgage, taxes, insurance, electric, phones, internet…I think I would prefer the tangible work of laundry. Even an 8-hour day of laundry might be preferable. At least in the end, I have the results I can see, touch, smell. Versus the intangible of finishing my day at my job, feeling mentally drained and knowing I still have a long drive home and the work at home to do. For an invisible paycheck deposited into my account.

*Not to sound too negative, I do enjoy aspects of my career/work (other than the salary/benefits), but this has decreased over the years, and I miss being at home.

Thank you for sharing this Tracy. I never knew either my grandparents or great-grandparents as they had all passed by the time I was old enough to remember them.

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I AM SURE I COULDN’T! MY FATHER TALKS ABOUT HIS GRANDMA “TURNING COLLARS” ON WORN WORK SHIRTS, AMONG OTHER THINGS. SHE WAS ONE TOUGH LADY.

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People didn’t have as many clothes then–a couple of outfits for school, old clothes for play, and one, maybe two, for church. Mama often told stories of her mother boiling their clothes outside (southern Georgia) in a large kettle, then everything was line dried. One story was of the time she left the clothes out overnight. Everything was stolen except some old “raggetty” diapers. When neighbors learn, they called Salvation Army with details of the number and sizes of all the children (7 or 8). SA sent plenty of clothes for all the boys and girls. This was the reason Mama always supported the Salvation Army.

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My grandmother was born in 1889 and died (in our home) at the age of 102. As a child, I would spend summers with her (until I was 16 and discovered dating!). She didn’t get hot water in her house (and a bathroom – she still had an outhouse which she made us use in the summer months – which my kids HATED) until I was 16 yrs old (I’m 68 now). I remember her boiling BIG pots of water, when she was doing bedding and large items, for her wringer washer. Smaller everyday items were done on a scrub board outside. Everything was hung on clothes lines outside. That was my job and I LOVED it. To this day, I still like to hang clothes on the line (during the warmer months, though).

That same wringer washer she used is now a flower planter outside my kitchen door. I’m sorry I never brought it in the house and used it. We had a wringer washer (Maytag – my grandmother’s was an Easy) when I was growing up and I miss it. I remember hanging clothes in the basem*nt on lines or outside during the summer. We also had a rack set up in the bathtub to dry everyday hand washed items. I often think about getting rid of my new front loading HE washer and dryer and getting a wringer washer!

Scrubbing clothes on the scrub board as a kid was OK, but the closest I want to get to those now is the collection of them I have hanging on the wall in my laundry room! I also have my grandmothers wringer sitting on the sink in the laundry room. I’m pretty sure she did most of the crank turning on that old wooden antique!

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I use my clothes line 99% of the time, hanging clothes with tips that my Oma taught me, like pulling jean pockets inside out so they dry faster. I think jeans actually dry faster in the Colorado sunshine than they do in a dryer. Love it ❤

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