Well it has been a few weeks now and I am pleased to announce that I have continued to be faithful with the laundry. I know it may seem silly to chronicle it with as much persistence as I have been, but it has been a really big deal to me. It is with great pleasure that I can say not only am I being faithful with it, but I am actually beginning to enjoy it.
Thanks to cutting down drastically on the load sizes by keeping up with them, I am once again able to 100% line dry. Not only do I love this rhythm for life, but it is saving us money by not running the dryer. Bonus! One minor drawback is the occasional presence of a creeper crawler or two in my freshly aired laundry: at Church on Sunday I felt a slight tickle in the bottom of my long skirt only to discover an earwig! While I'd like to think perhaps he was a resident of the Church, I suspect more than likely he was a stowaway.
My "Final Frontier" for laundry fun has been to bite the bullet and make my own laundry detergent. I had a look at a few recipes and settled on this one:
1 C washing soda
1 C baking soda
2 C castille soap
1 C Borax
for powdered detergent and this one for liquid. The liquid version is definitely less expensive to make, even when using Dr. Bronner's castille soap, which I did.
The powdered detergent could be used right away, which I did on a load yesterday. Everything came clean and looked lovely. This "recipe" appeals to me for purely shallow reasons: it looks so sweet in a mason jar and smells divine! I can imagine myself giving this as a gift - odd as it may sound, I love quirky homemade gifts.
The liquid detergent takes 24 hours to fully "set" and is doing so right now in my basement. I'm going to give it a test run and see how it measures up! Although I used peppermint scented soap, I doubt the laundry will smell much like peppermint due to the small amount of soap used (1/3 bar for 2 gallons!). If/when I make it again, I'll use the unscented castille soap and add essential oils as needed. To be honest, I love smelling "nothing" on my clothes and sheets - or, better yet, the summer smell of laundry hung dry over freshly cut grass!
What is your laundry rhythm? Have you ever made your own detergent? What recipe did you use? Share your success stories with me!
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I have used the liquid recipe and it worked really well. I tend to "drop" liquid on the floor though so am interested in your powder recipe. How much do you dump in to the washer for a full load?
ReplyDeleteI was JUST looking at that recipe the other day! I've been hunting for Washing Soda with no avail! Some things are harder to come by in the Islands! I did read you can bake Baking Soda for 2 hours and make it into washing soda, and replace the borax with Oxyclean! gonna try this when my laundry detergent runs out which is very soon!!!!! Thanks for the update!
ReplyDeleteHow fun! I am so excited that you made detergent. I have been interested in doing that myself. Nice to know that it cleans well.
ReplyDeleteI have been begging my husband to put up a clothes line for me for six years! What kind of line do you have? Just curious. I love those old metal T ones with wire lines but they are pricey. There is something so whimsy about line drying. Puts us in touch with days gone by and makes life seem a little simpler.
I have alot of friends that make their own detergent and I think I just need to make a bulk supply and I would be happy.
ReplyDeleteSara - the 2 gallon kind I whipped up filled 4 of my 32 ounce bottles. I usually go thru those every 2-3 weeks so I figure 4 of them should get me at least thru the summer. Its nice to have them all lined up, full of detergent! Now to actually clean up my laundry space...
ReplyDeleteLydia, are you using this on your cloth diapers as well? Any word on whether it's 'safe'/effective on pocket dipes??
ReplyDelete