Thanks so much to Heidi for her homemade recipe - here it is for us all to try in 2009 and save a bunch of cash!
HOMEMADE LAUNDRY LIQUID
• 1 x bar of pure soap
• 1 x saucepan {an old one if you have it}
• 1 x cup soda crystals
• 1/2 cup borax
• 0.5 litre + 5 litres water
• 1 x large plastic clean bucket
• wooden or steel spoon
I use the American cup for measuring as I find it easier.
Method:
Grate soap with a cheese grater & place in the saucepan with the ½ litre of water. Heat this while stirring until soap dissolves. Take saucepan off the heat.
Fill bucket with the 5 litres of water. Add soda crystals & stir until dissolved.
Then add soap mixture from saucepan & stir until fully dissolved.
This will thicken as it cools - Adding some essential oil makes a nice scent.
Add more or less water depending on the consistency desired then transfer liquid into bottles using a funnel.
Use one cup per wash.
Note: this liquid does NOT make suds. It has no foaming agent that is usually added to commercial liquids. Despite this it’s an excellent “green” cleaner that contains no phosphates.
Takes about 30 mins to make 10 pints.
Cost approx £0.49 pence per batch.
Wow thanks Heidi! I will start saving suitable containers now. In fact I have a 'cubit' (5 litres wine) which is from France and empty from the Christmas season, that may well do the trick so I will 'recycle' it for this purpose...
I made some more washing up liquid this weekend (see right hand menu re 'Cleaning') - 3 litres and poured it into 3 empty 2 pint plastic milk bottles. Lovely scent in the kitchen as you 'cook' it and let it cool!
9 comments:
Hi, really interesting blog.
Am I being thick, because I can't find your washing up liquid recipe.
Keep up the good work
Kim
Hereford
Thanks Kim - I needed to find the e-mail from my cleaning company to copy it 100% - it's now on the front page, but under the 'Cleaning' tab for future use...
Enjoy and please do click 'Follow the blog' so I know hopw many folks read this! x
Will have to give this laundry liquid a go.
I normally use value/basic powder as none of us have allergies etc but this would be "greener" as well.
Maisie let us know how tou get on - it sounds an ideal recipe and so much greener. I still have lots of powdered Persil left, which we dilute 50/50 with soda crystals but I'll be first in the queue afterwards... I guess when getting used to the homemade liquid we'd use the same 'dose' as in a laundry ball that you just chuck in the machine?
A low cost, green eco friendly, healthy natural way to deal with laundry is to make a homemade liquid from soapberries which grow on the Chinaberry tree and have been used for thousands of years. They work very effectively.
That sounds great, I do actually have some soapnuts that I bought on ebay, the only thing is that I need a proper 'receptacle' to place them in - a net pouch doesn't work (as bits of the nuts come out into the clothes durin gthe wash) so I am going to try a sock tied up next time. We live in a hard water area so need approx 4-5 nuts per wash, and we would then re-use these say 3 times.
For liquid handwash, would it just be a case of boiling the nuts I wonder?
Hi, loving your blog. I have always used non-biological washing powder (the own brands seem to be disappearing in the supermarkets) as my son has quite sesitive skin. Do you know how the homemade laudry liquid is with sesitive skin?
Charlotte
Hi Charlotte, I really think that homemade will be far less chemical based - I have heard people say it's better for their sensitive skin. I guess the best way is to try it and see, but I think you will be pleased. Don't forget that Soapnuts are also said to be very good for sensitive skin, and 6 soapnuts can be used 2 or 3 times so also very cheap and greener too than chemicals x
Hi
What do you dop with the borax?
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