Today’s favorite Pampered Chef product is the rotary grater.

I have always had a special knack for grating off my fingernails with a traditional grater, and this one has definitely come to the rescue. Great for grating cheese, chocolate, or even carrots — and it can be reversed for left-handed users. It makes quick work of grating!

My favorite use for the grater is actually to make homemade laundry detergent. I used this recipe for laundry detergent for over 2 years, until my washing machine died and I bought a high efficiency machine. Back then, no one knew if it was safe to use homemade detergent in high efficiency machines, but now it looks like enough brave people have tried it with success that I’m going to start using it again. It cleans and removes odors perfectly well, but is not great on stains, so I have to remember to pretreat. But considering that $7 worth of ingredients lasts about 6 months (doing approximately 2 loads per day), I think the cost savings are worth a little pretreating!

There are lots of recipes out there for homemade detergent, but here’s why I chose this one: it’s simple. Lots of recipes ask you to carefully measure ingredients in small batches, or to boil lots of water to dissolve the soap to make liquid detergent — but aren’t you going to be dissolving the soap in the wash anyway?

Homemade Laundry Detergent

• 1 Box Borax
• 1 Box Arm and Hammer Washing Soda
• 3 bars soap, grated. (I recommend Zote, Fels Naptha, or even Ivory. Don’t use soap with lotions or perfumes in them.)

Mix together, and store in airtight container. Use 1-2 Tbs. per load as you would regular detergent.

Sound like strange ingredients? I’ve found them at Kroger and Publix locally. Fels Naptha soap was typically available at Publix. (They must have figured out that there’s a lot of us who make our own detergent.) They are found with the laundry boosters like Oxi Clean. Grating that much soap can be tedious, but the rotary grater makes it much easier!

Don’t forget the ongoing Pampered Chef party  to benefit our adoption as you consider your Christmas shopping!