Homemade cleaners, and soap

[grunt]

Wendy: If you still have the link to the original carpet cleaning solution, maybe you can access it with Wayback www.archive.org/web/web.php

[bluelacedredhead]

Thanks Dan. I'll give that a try in the morning.

[mnjrutherford]

Blue! That link is absolutely AWESOME! Thanks for posting it!

Just ta let ya know, we are getting ready to make our monthly foray to Costco. I have a standard shopping list with about 100 items. Thanks to you guys, I've permanently crossed off half a dozen $10+ items.

INCLUDING Dishwasher powder! I can't remember who was asking for for this, but I was interested in the answer as well. So, follow the link and check out the page!

[bluelacedredhead]

Okay, I'm confused? You can't have a bath cuz your seedlings are growing in the tub, but you have an Automatic Dishwasher??

[mnjrutherford]

LOL Yes, you are SURELY confused Blue! We kept the CHICKS (baby chickens Michel!) in the bathtub... That was why no bath. ;D

[bluelacedredhead]

oh yeah, that was it.

[mnjrutherford]

hehehe.... you knew it was SOMEthing huh?

[mnjrutherford]

So here we are starting week three of the homemade laundry soap regimen. The skin issues that usually flare up this time of year are not presenting themselves at all. Even bug bites seem to be minimized though that may have nothing to do with the soap issue.

I received the Lavender EO the other day. It's a good quality. I put a few (like 2 or 3) drops into the soap and it did not affect the fragrance of the soap at all. I'm thinking that I should probably add it to the water that get's mixed with the cooked solution.

As I cogitated this all, over the weekend, it came to me that really, even though the soap actually has a strong fragrance from the Fels Naptha, once dried, it has no fragrance at all. I'm thinking this is due to the vinegar. So then it occurred to me that perhaps I should add the lavender to the vinegar? I would like my clean laundry to have a wee bit of fragrance. I have added about 10 drops to slightly more than half a gallon of vinegar. I can't really say at this point if the laundry has the smell or not. If it does, it's extremely light. Light is what I'm aiming for!

I can't tell you all how grateful I am for this thread being started. I really felt it in the pocketbook when we did our monthly Costco shopping trip. Without the "normal" laundry costs we spent about $50 LESS than normal! WOOHOO! Then we found a great Italian deli that has REALLY good mortadella and I said GOOD-bye to the $50.

[ozarklady]

It feels almost like earning money, or found money doesn't it, when you don't have to shell it out on expensive laundry products.

I feel like we didn't like something, (the costs of doing laundry) and so we researched it, and found a better way. Makes us feel empowered, huh?

I like the way the homemade detergent cleans, and I like the lavendar smell, so faint and yet there.

I look at the bottles of liquid soaps differently now. Gee the bottle costs more than the bar, and it is really less. It is water we are paying for. I can "peel" a bar of soap and make alot of bottles of hand soap, for alot less money!

This thread started as just my own search, and it developed a life of its own, and went many places, since so many had already tread the path that I was looking at.

Did anyone get a good recipe figured out to replace my Dawn dishwashing detergent?
I like it, but it tends to break out my hands if I use the concentrate, so I dilute it. But, there must be a better way!

[mnjrutherford]

More than the money saved, I like the money not handed over to the fat cat executives or handed over in dividend checks to share holders. THAT is what I REALLY like!. As for fragrance, I still don't have that quite right. So far, only the vinegar in the bottle smells like lavender! HA! Makes me laugh actually.

We have our first opportunity to try it all out against poison oak/ivy as of yesterday. My youngest got into a patch. Double washed the clothes and had the kids in the tub with a bar of Fels Naptha. Hubby went to the shower for the same treatment. We'll know how well it works by the end of the day, I'm feeling pretty confident at the moment.

Blue posted a link a few days ago that had a page of recipes, but I can't find it now. It does have a recipe for liquid dishsoap. One of the main ingredients is liquid castile.

That put me on the hunt for liquid castile. It isn't cheap, Blue said that as well. But it does seem fairly easy, though time consuming to make. Are you covering this concoction in your class Ozark?

[ceara]

Apr 19, 2010 20:42:28 GMT -5 ozarklady said:

Did anyone get a good recipe figured out to replace my Dawn dishwashing detergent?
I like it, but it tends to break out my hands if I use the concentrate, so I dilute it. But, there must be a better way!

The Victorians used a mixture of soft soap and washing soda. Old fashioned soft soap is brown, sticky gooey stuff. I don't even know where it could be purchased any more. But it was used over 100 years ago.

Just beware when using real soap, it naturally contains a byproduct of glycerin. Which is very very slippery and may make dishwashing unsafe, especially with glass. And washing soda is slightly caustic on skin. The Victorians used a camphor wax type of product to put onto skin before bed and wore cotton gloves after applying the wax.

Murphy's Oil Soap is a good soap that won't dry out your skin. But it too will make dishes very slippery. I prefer Murphy's over chemicals, especially since I have a "zoo" of 2 large Retriever dogs and 2 cats. Don't want them to get chemicals on their paws. I also use diluted bleach in water to kill germs in the kitchen.

When soap is made, the sodium hydroxide (lye extracted from salt as a byproduct via electrolysis which also creates chlorine) or potassium hydroxide (old fashioned wood ash type of lye) reacts with the fatty acids in the fats and oils and creates soap molecules and glycerin. Sodium hydroxide makes hard bar soap, and potassium hydroxide makes liquid or soft gooey soap.

Commercial bar soap manufacturers extract the glycerin from the mixture and sell it to you in the form of lotions, etc. Then they have the audacity to tell you that soap dries your skin, so you must require lotions and creams. A total crock of lies. Soap wouldn't be drying if it did not have the glycerin removed. What started the whole switch from soap to detergent was WW2. Glycerin was needed for bomb manufacture and real soap became hard to find. Detergents are derived from the petroleum industry, which is probably why it irritates your skin.

You could probably just wash dishes with water and lemon juice or vinegar instead of soap. Water does the washing anyway. Soap is just a surfactant that allows water to do its job better. The gentle acids should help cut grease. Recall the old tv commercials for dishwashing liquid and how they touted the products contained lemon juice for "extra grease cutting power."

www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/136/1/24-handy-lemon-tips.html

Then after washing up, you can rub in some extra virgin olive oil or sweet almond oil. The olive oil is good for your fingernails anyway and doesn't feel greasy once it's absorbed. Sweet Almond oil contains Vitamin E.

For other home care tips, I learned a lot from a British tv show called "How Clean is Your House." Tons of videos from that show are on YouTube. That's where I learned the handy trick of cleaning glass on a wood burning stove and have been using it ever since. In case you want to know now, use crumpled up newspaper. Dip in water, then dip into wood ashes. Wipe glass to loosen any gunk. Then fresh newspaper in yet more water, wipe clean. Works like a dream! The ladies go on and on about the power of lemons and toothpaste in house cleaning. But beware, you will see some mega nasty filthy homes in that tv show that may make you gag. Some people are really gross and unsanitary!

We have it made today, compared to long ago. Human urine was often used in cleaning new woolen cloth. Urine was saved up, dumped into a used wooden barrel and then you had to trod on the cloth with bare feet. Urine was also often used in making fabric dye and it stunk so bad that royalty often demanded the dyers live a good distance away from the city to avoid offending royal noses with the stench.

[ozarklady]

I re-read this post, how very informative.
I am still using my homemade laundry detergent and saving money in that way.
Vinegar is still my rinse.
Unfortunately, still using diluted Dawn for dishwashing liquid.

Jo see if you can find some Jewelweed, or touch me not, it is a weed, that often grows where poison ivy grows. You can incorporate that into soaps and lotions for poison ivy, when you can't find the weed. www.altnature.com/jewelweed.htm

How is everyone's soap experiments going?

[Penny]

I missed this thread.......that link is great, thanks Blue!

[bunkie]

i missed this thread too. read all the pages. lots of great info here. i too have very sensitive skin and will be trying ol's recipe as soon as i acquire all the ingredients.

one question i have is about the vinegar. i'm assuming you all use the white vinegar? i, not too long ago, found out that it can be made from corn...possibly GM corn. for some dumb reason i always thought it was made from fruit?! i guess cause of the apple cider vinegar. anyway, i am now on a quest to make my own vinegar. anybody have any recipes, experiences?

i still use Dawn too, the original not the newer antibacterial stuff. am looking for a homemade recipe also, and if i find one, i'll post.

good work all! ;D

[mnjrutherford]

Sept 15, 2010 14:40:44 GMT -5 ozarklady said:

I re-read this post, how very informative.
I am still using my homemade laundry detergent and saving money in that way.
Vinegar is still my rinse.
Unfortunately, still using diluted Dawn for dishwashing liquid.

Jo see if you can find some Jewelweed, or touch me not, it is a weed, that often grows where poison ivy grows. You can incorporate that into soaps and lotions for poison ivy, when you can't find the weed. www.altnature.com/jewelweed.htm

How is everyone's soap experiments going?

Hey! Just got back. I didn't have time to respond before we left.

1. Jewelweed - It's supposed to be a native around here, but I haven't been able to locate it. Not yet at least. Thanks for the link! I will have to follow it tomorrow.

2. Soap - I'm finishing up my third batch and I must confess that I'm not thrilled. Our whites are getting super dingy and I want to adjust the formula. I was thinking about doubling or even tripling the washing soda OR the borax.

What do you think?