Here is another recipe to help your home be a lil greener, cleaner and healthier.
Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap 4 Cups - hot tap water
1 bar of large soap (any pure basic soap that is biodegradable, no added chemicals/synthetics etc is fine)
1 Cup - Washing Soda
½ Cup 20 Mule Team Borax (You can find this in your laundry aisle at any grocery store)
Directions: Grate bar of soap & add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.
-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda & Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover & let sit overnight to thicken.
Stir & fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)
Use about 2/3 cup per load for a large capacity machine.
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Notes: Yields 10 gallons, but the recipe can be cut in half or even quartered. Also, if you are cloth diapering your child (as I know many of my friends are) this recipe may not be suitable for maximizing the absorbancy of your cloth diapers (which we know is important!!) A safe detergent for cloth diapers can be found here.
Whys & Whats: We got this recipe from our friend, Sarah, after discovering that the laundry detergent we had purchased for Squeaker wasn't so 'Free & Clear" like it advertised. But we were so skeptical of the so called 'natural' detergents as well. With this recipe not only do we have little to fear in the way of chemicals leeching on to our clothing & getting into our skin, but its SUPER cheap compared to the store brands!
Our Assessment: Though we have not offically tired this laundry soap yet, Sarah has been using it for a while with no complaints. We'll update you when we finally are able to make & use our own...we're just waiting for our washing soda to arrive in the mail.
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Other Important Notes about Laundry:
Use plain ol everyday white vinegar in your fabric softener dispenser to soften your clothing. Your clothes will NOT come out smelling like vinegar.
To help your dryer get the job done faster, toss in a tennis ball with the load to help the clothes spread out & get the air flowing
I think i'll give this a try if it goes well for you! Let us know! We're all about saving money! (And it'd give me peace of mind to know what's gone into our detergent)
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ReplyDeleteI stumbled upon you via Beth... anyway, just popping in to ask if you've had a chance to try this out yet? Also, random factoid I only just learned after 2+ years of washing cloth diapers: vinegar degrades elastic. So, don't use too much, or too often on your diapers unless you use all flats and prefolds. Just thought I'd share, 'cause I wish I had known before I got angry about the elsatic on all my "nice" diapers (the BumGenius, etc) getting shot to pieces (or rather, decomposed into goo). Congrats on the new babe!
Thanks Averity! Good to know! We actually don't use vinegar for our diapers, mostly just towels and our jeans, because who wants to dry off with a sandpaper towel and then put on cardboard jeans?!
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