As The Farmer and I are having a super saving year this year we are looking to be frugal in as many ways as possible, as well as being green. So in view of this I decided to go in search of a home made clothes washing powder or liquid....and I didn't have to search far as I stumbled on a local blog that had a recipe that looked like it was worth trying.
Frugal Kiwi is a great fantastic New Zealand blog with some super interesting posts. Including this fantastic recipe for home-made clothes washing liquid
http://frugalkiwi.co.nz/2009/09/clean-green-diy-liquid-laundry-detergent/
The recipe is as follows
250g (1 cup) Borax (aka borax pentahydrate, sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate)
125g (1/2 cup) washing soda (aka Sodium carbonate, soda crystals or soda ash)
1 regular sized bar of soap around 85g (3 oz)
Grate the soap and put into a pot with about 1 litre (4 cups) of water. Heat the water until the soap is almost melted, but avoid bringing to a boil. Pour into the 20 litre bucket. Add 11 litres (44 cups) of warm water to the bucket. Add washing soda and stir until dissolved. Add borax and stir until dissolved. Your mixture will now look like soapy water. Cover with your bucket lid and let sit overnight.
The next day you’ll find a gel surrounded by a soapy liquid. Use 1/2 cup per wash scooping some gel and some liquid for each wash.
The old classic, fantastic stuff! I used Sunlight soap as the solid soap
The grated soap melted down in water
All mixed up in the bucket ready to set overnight
And after setting overnight you are left with this really cool jelly with a little liquid around it!
I found all the ingrediants I needed at our local Binn Inn store.
I've been using this to wash my clothes for the last week, and to be honest I was expecting it to be inferior to the shop bought stuff, but I have been surprised! My clothes have been coming out cleaner and softer than ever before (and the powder I had been using had a built in fabric softener) I've been so impressed with the results! There is no perfume to it, which has taken getting used to, as I was used to associating perfume with clean-ness. But the clothes have a lovely fresh smell to them which The Farmer loves - he hates any kind of fake perfumey scent.
No going back now, I'm in love <3 and costing out at less than 5c a wash...
awesome!
Happy growing (and washing!) everyone :)
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