Homemade Fabric Softener - Don't Knock It Until You've Tried It

Homemade Fabric Softener

Since my husband is on strike for Lord only knows how long and I stay at home with our kids, I'm trying to think of every possible way to scrimp and save.  Well, I saw a link on Pinterest the other day about how to make your own fabric softener, and lo and behold I ran out of fabric softener this weekend.  I figured why don't I give that homemade fabric softener a try.

All you need to make it is hot water, vinegar and cheap hair conditioner.   The recipe calls for 6 cups hot water, 3 cups vinegar and 2 cups hair conditioner.  Well, the conditioner that's depicted in the picture (15 oz.) doesn't measure two cups, so I adjusted the recipe.  Here's my recipe for Homemade Fabric Softener:

About 3 cups hot water (more or less) - I just used hot tap water
15 oz. bottle of hair conditioner
About 1 1/2 cups vinegar (more or less)

Mix hot water with hair conditioner then add vinegar.  Pour into old fabric softener bottle or whatever clean jug you have on hand.  Mine just barely fit into my old 51 oz. Downy bottle.

Downy is about, what, $5 a bottle or more?  I paid .99 cents for the conditioner and I paid about $2 for a huge jug (1 gallon) of Kroger brand vinegar that only used up 3 cups so I have 13 cups remaining.  So I figured I spent a little over a dollar for my fabric softener.  Cool thing about this is you don't have to use the same fragrance of conditioner every time - you can switch it up.

Now, I don't consider myself to be a supermom.  I don't, like, sew all my kids clothes out of all natural fibers.  My kids don't eat vegetables or fruit at every meal.  I don't make my own bread or hug trees or anything like that.  But since we're having to tighten our belts a bit during this strike, I figured I'd give this homemade recipe a try and I'm so glad I did.