I made my own laundry detergent! May 23, 2008

I was at the end of my big pail of Kirkland laundry detergent and decided to use that pail to make some of the gel-style laundry detergent. It seems to be a pretty popular recipe:

• 1 bar soap (grated)
• 1 cup washing soda
• 1/2 cup borax (I used 1 cup because we have HARD water)
• hot water

Place grated soap in a pot with water to cover. Simmer on MED heat, stirring occasionally, till it’s all melted. Put melted soap in 5 gal bucket, add washing soda and borax. (I mixed at this point and added some boiling water to get everything dissolved better). Add enough hot water to fill bucket, and stir. Let sit overnight to gel. Use 1 cup per load.

Mine gelled fine. I’ve been using it on the odd heavily soiled load and it seems to work really good. I’m going to wait long-term though to make sure, since I liked Kirkland at first too, but after awhile all my lights got super dingy. We’ll see if things get dingy with this mix.

Oh, I also added a few ‘things’ to the mix when I added the borax and washing soda. I added a bit of orange EO, since I used a lemon-scented Sunlight laundry bar as the bar soap, and a squeeze of environmentally friendly mandarin dish soap liquid, so now it’s a gorgeous citrus scent. yum! It makes everything smell SO clean.

I did have a bit of a laundry bummer though, as I bought some environmentally friendly, petroleum product free, dryer sheets and they don’t work at ALL. They smell great, but the static with them is exactly the same as without them. What a disappointment! I think I’m going to pop into Home Hardware one of these days and get a couple of those reusable dryer ‘rags’. I’m already missing the nice smell of the regular commercial kind though. I’ve been looking up how to make my own though, and there seems to be all kinds of recipes that have nice smelling EO’s, so I’ll have to try that. Hopefully I have it all down to a science by the time next winter hits – super static season.

Very simple carpet freshener. May 13, 2008

We have a stinky dog. I don’t know why he smells so bad. None of our other dogs did. But poor Buddha just has bad doggy BO. So in my attempt to keep the carpet smelling good between steam cleanings, I used basic baking soda, which works OK I guess. But I stumbled on a different recipe that works SO well, I have to write about it. You just need 3 ingredients.

1 cup baking soda

1 cup borax

15 drops of any nice smelling essential oil (I use lavendar, orange, peppermint, whatever I feel like).

Mix together and let sit for, oh, at least an hour or more.

Put in a container with holes to shake the powder with. (I bought some nifty glass ones at the dollar store that look like restaurant parmesean shakers). Shake powder onto carpet. Let sit for 15 min or more. One trick I read somewhere was to actually try to work the powder into the fibres, so I stomp on the carpet for a bit. After I vacuum it up, the room smells lovely, and stays that way for awhile. No more doggy smell!

I used the Glass Cleaner today. May 4, 2008

I made this recipe last night – I believe I found it on a recipe site, I didn’t write it down.:

Peppermint Glass Cleaner

1.5 cups vinegar

1 tsp borax

1/2 cup warm distilled water (I put 1 cup)

6 drops Peppermint Essential Oil

2 TBSP fresh squeezed Lemon OR 10 drops Lemon Essential Oil (I used the fresh squeezed Lemon juice).

Mix well and pour into a spray bottle with a funnel.

I found this recipe to clean reasonably well. I wouldn’t say as GOOD as Windex, but close. I’m going to tweak it a bit. I found it didn’t cut through the greasy lotion splatters on our window very well (please, don’t ask how those splatters got there!) but I don’t think it was meant for that. LOL. I’m going to tweak it next time I use it, I might add a drop of Dawn, or a TBSP of rubbing alcohol. I find that with this Cleaner, less is more. It doesn’t evaporate as quickly as, say, Windex, so there is a bit more rubbing involved, but the end result is pretty good. The vinegar smell isn’t overly strong either, the peppermint really balances it out. Overall, for my first try, I’m pleased!

EDIT: The next day I added both a drop of Dawn AND a tbsp of rubbing alcohol and the spray was much improved! An awesome substitute for any commercial glass cleaner!