DIY Fabric Softener for only $1.50!

I made 88 oz of fabric softener for only $1.50!

A couple of weeks ago I found a "recipe" online for homemade fabric softener. I've used generic softener for years with so-so results. It's nothing to write home about. My favorite is Downy Free because it's unscented and I'm all about unscented laundry products. However, the last time I bought a bottle at Wally World it cost me about $7.00 (no coupons, regular price - eek!). That's the bottle in the photo above. That is not Downy in the cap. That's homemade fabric softener.

I found the recipe on Pinterest, which brought me to onegoodthingbyjillee.com. I started following her blog after seeing all the neat stuff she posts. She's got all kinds of DIY household products and food recipes. My Downy ran out the other day so on Saturday, when I had a couple of loads of wash to do, I literally threw together the DIY softener. I didn't take photos as I went along because I was more concerned with getting the wash done. lol I took the photo above a few minutes ago just so I can show that it indeed looks like real softener. My homemade softener is a pretty shade of lavender, even though on my monitor it looks light blue.

Anyway, the recipe is so simple I already have it memorized.
6 cups of water
3 cups of white distilled vinegar
2 cups of hair conditioner - Suave is cheap and it comes in a bunch of different scents to choose from. I bought the smaller bottle (I think it's about 10 oz) and dumped the whole thing in.

I chose lavender/lilac conditioner. Like I said above, I prefer unscented laundry products but since I had to pick a scent, lavender seemed pretty nice. Isn't lavender and lilac supposed to have all those calming effects and stuff? Maybe doing the laundry will give me a dose of aromatherapy. Who knows.

So back to my softener. I poured it all into a giant Tupperware bowl - make sure the bowl is big enough to hold all that liquid - and stirred it easy with a whisk (the original instructions say shaking will cause it to foam). The conditioner was pretty globby but the whisk smoothed everything out in about five minutes. It ended up the consistency of regular fabric softener. After it was all mixed, I used a measuring cup to pour it into my empty Downy bottle. It makes about 88 oz. of softener and my total cost was less than $1.50!

I've done a few washes with it so far. I line dry most of my laundry outside right now while the weather is nice. The lavender scent is very subtle - great for someone who doesn't care for scented softener - and the clothes feel the same as they do with Downy. I'm going to give the entire bottle of DIY lavender scented softener a try. If it works out, fantastic. If not, I'm only out about $1.50. I can live with that.

You can find the original recipe and blog post here: Rebecca's Rosemary Mint Fabric Softener