Laundry and Dish Soap
My soap substitutes seem to be working beautifully. I'm so excited.
I'm really liking the Kiss My Face olive oil bar soap. It's gentle and feels pleasant on the skin, yet it does the job of getting things clean. Best of all, it doesn't make me itch.
A tablespoon or two of equal parts baking soda and borax seems to work no better or worse than the detergent we had been using in the dishwasher. It's certainly cheaper and safer.
For laundry, I made a liquid laundry detergent out of a cup of soap flakes (half a bar of my olive oil soap, grated), 1/2 cup borax and 1/2 cup washing soda, mixed and heated with water.
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That recipe made about two gallons of soap. I decided to go with the liquid because we use cold water to wash most of our clothes and I wanted to make sure it would dissolve well. Making the laundry soap was quite easy. It's super-cheap and environmentally friendly, too.
DH bought me some white wine vinegar (mmm, does it smell good!). I'm using a soup ladle to spoon the soap into the washing machine's dispenser and then filling the fabric softener dispenser with vinegar.
I'm on my 4th load of laundry and so far it seems to work very well. The clothes come out looking and smelling clean--maybe even cleaner than with the regular laundry detergent. Maybe it's my imagination, but the clothes feel slightly softer to me with this cleaning method.
The real test will be tonight, when I wash a load of diapers. Supposedly using soap-based cleaners is a no-no for cloth diapers, but I'm going to try it anyway. Hopefully the vinegar in the rinse will help keep it from building up any residue that will hurt the diapers' absorbency.
I'm really liking the Kiss My Face olive oil bar soap. It's gentle and feels pleasant on the skin, yet it does the job of getting things clean. Best of all, it doesn't make me itch.
A tablespoon or two of equal parts baking soda and borax seems to work no better or worse than the detergent we had been using in the dishwasher. It's certainly cheaper and safer.
For laundry, I made a liquid laundry detergent out of a cup of soap flakes (half a bar of my olive oil soap, grated), 1/2 cup borax and 1/2 cup washing soda, mixed and heated with water.
##################
That recipe made about two gallons of soap. I decided to go with the liquid because we use cold water to wash most of our clothes and I wanted to make sure it would dissolve well. Making the laundry soap was quite easy. It's super-cheap and environmentally friendly, too.
DH bought me some white wine vinegar (mmm, does it smell good!). I'm using a soup ladle to spoon the soap into the washing machine's dispenser and then filling the fabric softener dispenser with vinegar.
I'm on my 4th load of laundry and so far it seems to work very well. The clothes come out looking and smelling clean--maybe even cleaner than with the regular laundry detergent. Maybe it's my imagination, but the clothes feel slightly softer to me with this cleaning method.
The real test will be tonight, when I wash a load of diapers. Supposedly using soap-based cleaners is a no-no for cloth diapers, but I'm going to try it anyway. Hopefully the vinegar in the rinse will help keep it from building up any residue that will hurt the diapers' absorbency.
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Posted by purple_kangaroo at 3:14 PM[Permanent link]
7 Comments:
Every time I think that there's no way you can get any better in the Super Mom department, you go off and do something like this.
YOU ARE AWESOME.
YOu have far more patience than either my partner or I to do such things.
Do you double rinse the diapers? We always do with detergent to avoid a reaction (which seems ot work since now that Devyn is in "big girl pants" that aren't getting double rinsed she gets a a bit of a rash.
Making your own soap. I'm impressed.
I love Kiss my Face products.
Thanks Liz, Gord and Norma. It's no supermom thing . . . it's not something I'd be choosing to do if there were easily-available alternatives without our allergens. We all just do what needs to be done.
Yes PK, you do do what needs to be done - that's for sure.
But it's that you sound so pleasant about it that makes you Super Mom in our eyes. Sainthood is around the corner, lol.
Thanks, mommyham. At this point it's just such a relief to be able to do anything that seems to help, that I'm glad when something seems to work.
Oh, and I forgot to say--yes, Gord, we double-rinse and then with diapers we also run a full short wash cycle with no soap just to make sure they are thoroughly rinsed.
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