This is part of our 100 Things in 2015 challenge. Here’s the full list.

We live in Portland, so the pressure to make all the things you can is pretty high. To that end, Becky found a laundry detergent recipe that’s so easy a couple of children could make it.

First, we ordered all the ingredients. These aren’t things you can just pop over to Safeway and find, so we made use of our Amazon Prime membership.

Next: put the children to work. There are two stations: one for grinding up the bars of soap, the other for measuring and mixing all the other things. Will and Lucy agreed they should take turns.

The finished product is pretty satisfying.

It’s hard to say exactly what the cost per load of laundry here is. We spent $50 on ingredients, but the thing we ran out of was soap; we still have plenty of the rest. Whether it’s cheaper or not, we still feel pretty good about it – now we know exactly what’s going into the washer with our clothes.