I first saw a recipe for homemade laundry detergent ages ago and thought it was a great idea, but could never find the soap, so I gave up and continued using the store brought stuff. It's stayed in the back of my mind because according to publications like Debt-Proof Living and such, it is a huge money saver compared to store brought. Then one day at one of those mom and pop grocery stores I saw not only Fels Naptha, but also Zote soap. And it was really cheap, so I brought a bar of Fels Naptha. And it sat in my bathroom closet for about 6 months. I never wanted to grate the soap and boil it, and who has a 5 gallon bucket sitting around and where would I put it in my already crowded apartment where my rugrats wouldn't get in it? Then one day I needed to wash clothes and didn't have laundry detergent or money to buy any, so I grated the soap and mixed up the powered detergent. I was pleasantly surprised by the results. First of all, it took me about 5 minutes to grate the soap and mix it all up, where it would have taken me 15 minutes to go to the store, so all that belly aching for nothing. Second and most important: I have a cat that likes to piss me off by peeing under the chair I have by my front door. Incidently it's the chair I toss my coat on when I come in also. My kids don't think twice when they knock my coat to the floor. They also don't pick it up and without fail, the next morning I want to puke when I swing my coat to put it on. Regular laundry detergent does not rid your clothes of the smell of cat pee. This homemade detergent got rid of the smell. I'm sold.

Powdered Laundry Detergent

2 cups Fels Naptha, finely grated
1 cup washing powder (I also found this at the family-owned store)
1 cup Borax (this is readily available at most stores in the laundry aisle)
2 tbsp baking soda (I added this because it's usually what I use to rid clothes of cat smell)

Mix well and store in a plastic container with lid.
Use 2tbsp per full load of laundry.

This soap doesn't dissolve well in cold water, so I put an inch or so of hot water in the washer, added the soap, swished it around, then adjusted the temperature to whatever I wanted. It did not suds up, but as long as it got my clothes clean, who cares. A couple of people on-line complained that it didn't get odor out of their clothes, but I'm thinking they were sprayed by a skunk or something because cat smell is the hardest scent I've ever come across. Maybe the baking soda I added made the difference. I do know that my clothes had no scent at all which is taking some getting used to. Maybe I'll get some essential oil and try that. I also had to use fabric softener, which I normally don't use. My clothes came out soft enough, but there was some static cling, but over all I'm very satisfied and will continue to use this instead of store brought.

Google "homemade laundry detergent" for a liquid version, testemonials, price comparisions, etc.