Liquid detergent is a cleansing agent in liquid form. Making a liquid detergent is easy for home or commercial use. This is an efficient way to save you from expensive commercial laundry and liquid detergents and most of all it’s very effective. Most of the available ingredients can be easily bought in supermarkets or from chemical stores.

In making your own homemade liquid detergent, you will need the following materials:

Sodium lauryl ether sulfate, or SLES
Sodium chloride or iodized salt
Cocodiethanolamide or CDEA
Ethyl alcohol
Water-soluble dye
Benzalkonium chloride
Distilled or de-ionized water
(All available from chemical stores)
Wooden or plastic ladle
Medium-sized basin
Kitchen scale
Measuring spoons and cups
Gas stove
330 ml. PET bottles, P5.50/pc. Available at Cachetrade in Cubao, Quezon City.

Procedure in making a Liquid Detergent:

1. Put 1.4 liter of distilled water in a pot and boil the water for 15 minutes. You have to use distilled water or de-ionized to avoid contaminating the liquid detergent mixture. Tap water has substances that can cause the mixture to eventually emit a bad odor.

2. While waiting for the mixture to boil, put the SLES (150 grams) and iodized salt (80 g) into the basin. Mix them thoroughly with the ladle until the iodized salt is completely dissolved.

3. Once the water has boiled enough and the salt has completely dissolved, gradually pour the water into the liquid detergent mixture.
Stir. Keep on stirring until the SLES mixture is dissolved. The liquid detergent mixture becomes foamy when stirred, which means that the SLES is being dissolved.

4. Now add to the mixture the CDEA (60 ml), benzalkonium chloride (0.01 ml), degreaser (40 ml), and the fragrance (10 ml). Don’t add the water-soluble dye and the ethyl alcohol as yet. The water-soluble dye (10 g) should first be dissolved in ethyl alcohol (60 ml) before being added to the mixture. And make sure that the fragrance and dye are properly matched.

5. After putting in all the chemicals, mix until everything is dissolved. Let the mixture cool until the bubbles subside. Then add another liter of cool distilled water. Once the mixture has sufficiently cooled down, the liquid detergent becomes clear. You can now pour the finished product into the PET bottles. Cap the PET bottles containing the liquid detergent and set them aside. The yield of the liquid detergent mixture is 2.77 liters. Using 330-ml bottles, you can produce eight bottles of liquid detergent from it.