Here's how I did it with help from Tipnut.com. There are no less than
10 recipes for DIY laundry detergent on this nifty site.
For recipe #10, take 1 cup white vinegar, 1 cup washing soda, 1 cup baking soda, and 1/4 cup liquid Castile soap. I love essential oils, so the plan was to add a few drops of rosemary oil.
My new Ganesha, riding a 3 headed elephant, is observing and removing any obstacles in my path. :)
Suggested mixing order: first liquid soap, then washing soda, then baking soda, and then vinegar in small amounts, as it foams up. Just like the DIY volcanoes I hope you have made at some point! Crush any chunks in the baking soda prior to adding it. The first 3 ingredients mix together nicely.
I made a video of the vinegar inclusion. Heh. Watch out at the end when I can't remember how to stop the camera. The more little movies I make, the better I'll get.
The mix ended up looking like this:
Rather chunky. Probably because I could not restrain myself with the vinegar! Next time, I will add it in little dollops, and I bet I get a smoother result. So I put about half a cup into a smaller vessel.
Then I added about 4 drops of rosemary oil. As I mixed this in, I crushed the chunks with a fork. I had hoped for a lovely scent, but it smelled terribly like eucalyptus. How has my rosemary turned into eucalyptus? I may have aromatherapy fae in the house. I used the rosemary/euc. batch on the first load of clothes. Second batch I added tangerine oil...mmmmmmm....hope the scent doesn't get destroyed in the dryer, but it probably will.
Ganesha approves of my endeavors!
I will let you know about the actual cleaning power of this substance in another post.
I am eagerly awaiting the next post. This just might come in handy the next time I have to buy (make!) laundry soap.
ReplyDeleteI used to make my own laundry soap. The recipe was almost the same but instead the vinegar was added seperately to the washer where you would add fabric softener and I used bar castille soap that I shredded in the cuisanart. I loved that it was so green....but I hope your recipe cleans better than mine did. I have a young child who spills ketchup on himself as a hobby and after a couple of months of washing with my recipe...I had to go back to my expensive ECOS detergent.
ReplyDeleteLove the video!
ReplyDeleteSydnii: Go for it! Recipe #10 is a good one.
ReplyDeleteInannasstar: Maybe if you try a recipe with "20 mule team" borax in it? I understand it does some serious cleaning.
Walk: It was fun. Shooting with my left & mixing with my right was not the easiest for me, though!