Homemade Laundry Soap

I guess it has been about just over two years ago that we bought our second largest appliance purchase - our front loading LG washer and dryer. Funny enough we had to sell them when we moved from Alberta to BC in December (now the cleaning pair sits in Nadine's laundry room!). Being the first time we owned an HE washing machine, I had to take a harder look at the laundry soap that we were using. My husband's parents had purchased an HE washing machine and, unaware of the importance of the type of laundry soap they needed, they used regular detergent. In about a year they had to do some serious repairs because of the damage caused by too much suds and bubbles. So in their hard learned lesson I knew that I needed to find an alternative. At first we started by using Costco's Kirkland HE laundry soap, but soon realized that the price was pretty high despite the savings being that it was from Costco. So in conversation with my good high school friend living in Ontario, I found my first solution. Here is the recipe of the first attempt at making homemade, eco friendly laundry soap:

1 Bar of Soap, grated
1 Cup Washing Soda
1/2 Cup Borax
3 Gallons of water

Bring 4 cups of the water to just under a boil, add the grated bar of soap, stir until dissolved
Heat 3 gallons of water - I just turned the kitchen tap to the hottest setting
Add the washing soda, and Borax to the 3 gallons of hot water, stir until dissolved
Add the soap mixture, stir and let set for roughly 24 hours.
Use 1 Cup of "gel" for every regular laundry load.

Now I found that this laundry soap worked extremely well for us. At the time we had a potty training youngster who had more than a few accidents in bed and in their clothes, and every time this detergent would get the smell out. The one major downside to this recipe was the space factor. Finding a container large enough to hold the "gel". As well, the mixture would separate on occasion - no big deal really, I just kept a long wooden spoon on hand to mix back together.

I used this for about 6 months or so when I found myself talking with my same friend from Ontario. She had come across a new laundry soap recipe that she enjoyed. It goes something like this:

1 Bar of Soap
1/2 Cup Washing Soda
1/2 Cup Borax
1/2 Cup oxi-clean (optional)
5-10 drops of essential oil (I use lemon)

Mix all ingredients together
Use 1-2 tablespoons depending on the dirtiness of your laundry load.
Enjoy! Alicia.

I would have to second all that Alicia has to say :)  This laundry soap is amazing! It's cheap!  And it works.  And for those of us who live on the peninsula, you only need to use 1/2 tbsp per load as the local residential information is that we only need half the recommended amount of soap due to our very soft water conditions.

Nadine :)

Clean cleaning.....what?

I got started on this organic eco-friendly kick slowly over a few years, but I started first off by experimenting with eco-friendly organic house cleaners. We have tried multiple products, styles, scents, etc. in our house to keep it clean and not upset our sensitive skin and lungs.

Here's the good news, what works best is quick, easy and cheap!

My floor cleaner:
3 litres of water, 3 litres of vinegar and 3-5 drops of Sunlight dish detergent.

This is a mix of many different recipes for homemade cleaners that I have come across after realizing that all the eco-friendly cleaners I was buying were still very expensive and not realistic for living under our means and living environmentally responsibly.

Over the past few months I have been working on getting a good system for keeping our kitchen, dining and living room floors clean. In our house we have a loop between these three rooms and it is definitely the most highly traveled pathway in our house! Sometimes it's clean feet, but often it is dirty little toes or just as dirty kitty paws. To add to it, our patio has french doors that open onto this area as well so in the summer we tend to toss our shoes up on the patio and enter the house. So there is no filter for keeping all the dust and dirt off of this area. Then of course there is all the food stuff from the kitchen and the bits and pieces dropped from the kitchen table.

I came to the realization that it doesn't matter what I do, I have to sweep this floor every day and wash it every 2-3 days. My problem with washing the floor that often is that my mop broke several months ago and I have been too cheap to buy another thing that might just break, so i have been hand washing the floor! It looks beautiful, but takes a very long time to do; something, many moms don't have. I do have a couple of mops that you can clip disposable cloths onto, but that seemed to be a very unsatisfactory option because it is expensive and wasteful. (Sorry to all those who love their swiffers :) )

So, after surfing the internet for ideas and solutions, I had to finally open my Christmas present and learn how to crochet. I found a pattern for a rectangular mop cover and I gave it a try. After about 10 attempts I got the stitches down and got the project done. I was so excited to try it on my mop. The only downfall with it was that it was only half the length it needed to be! So I doubled the pattern and it worked.

I tried it out this week and it works great! And the crochet stitches are thick enough to get good scrubbing action. It was pretty dirty after doing the kitchen floor so I flipped it over and finished up the living room and dining room. Time to whip up a few more of them and then I'll be set for all my cleaning needs.

Happy cleaning,
Nadine