Is it just me or do you notice the lack of good sales on essentials like soaps, disinfectant wipes, laundry detergent and so on? There are some great sales here and there but they usually aren't for the products I want or need. There are a variety of recipes that can be found online if you prefer an all natural ingredient based product like me! And I thought I'd try one out!
I've decided to make my own laundry detergent! We prefer to use liquid and the sad part of this process is that I need to wait for someone to give me an old big liquid detergent bottle to dispense my home made detergent. Why don't I use the ones I already have you ask? Well, they're just small bottles and I'm looking to keep one large bottle that has the easy to dispense knob on it than having a few smaller bottles on hand. So, for the time being I made the powdered version of this recipe and will transform it into liquid later. It was really simple to make and this seemed to be the most popular recipe I found online!
Here's what you need:
2 cups of finely grated bar of soap
1 cup Borax (can grab it from Walmart for like $5)
1 1/2 cups Washing Soda (Bake baking soda for 30 mins at 400 C)
1 cup of Baking Soda
2 tablespoons of natural oatmeal (optional, but great for skin problems like eczema etc.)
I used this recipe to try and make a big batch that would last me awhile! The only thing I can suggest to save you some time is to make the washing soda first. I spent a lot of wasted time sitting around waiting for it to do it's thing in the oven, then it was super hot when I poured it in with my other ingredients. It sort of melted my soap bits and I don't know if its a good or bad thing. Grating the soap takes awhile too but more on that later!
The ingredients! I sadly only bought a tiny bit of oatmeal for the recipe. If anything, I should of got at least 2-3 times what I have pictured. I spent a good amount of time crushing the oatmeal with my hand into tiny bits as to avoid clogging my washer. I don't think you need to do that but I wanted to spread out my oatmeal as much as possible.
Oh boy! Let me tell you! Grating is tiring! I used a 112g bar of Dove soap and it got me to just under two cups of soap! Near the end the soap gets pretty caked on the grate and makes grating even more difficult. It's like a test of patience and pain in the ass-ness to save a few dollars!
All all my ingredients in a large mixing bowl. The best part is since Borax is natural, plus soap and basically baking soda, I don't have to worry about cross contaminating harmful chemicals with my regular food mixing bowl.
After I gave it a good stir, I reused an old mason jar as storage. I've done one load of laundry with two tablespoons of this stuff and so far and it seems to be just fine. No complaints from Winton so far! There's no smell or anything and my clothes feel clean. I'll keep you guys posted if there are any pros and cons.
Next, I have some home made Lysol wipes and baby safe lotion soap lined up! I'm pretty excited about the soap! I just ordered some really really cool silicone moulds online and I just think it would make a great gift idea on top of using it at home. I love eliminating all the bad and unnecessary fragrance and chemicals from things we use on ourselves everyday. You get to control it and making isn't too bad and the cost over time is pretty monumental. Not to mention all the less scratching that is to be had with the use of more natural products on the skin! I hope you guys give it a try and let me know what you think!
Eros and Pookie
No comments:
Post a Comment