Homemade Laundry Powder & Liquid Recipes
I really never thought I would be a person who had time to bother with making my own home cleaning products. However, in the interest of reducing my chemical exposures it has become necessary. Fake fragrances and a long list of ingredients nobody has ever heard of are bombarding us every day with unknown health consequences. These recipes are extremely simple to make and continue to save me money. Here are more nontoxic cleaning products options!
Dealing with dirt
This is a combination of red clay mud and horse manure!
If you are questioning the strength of the recipe let me just say I live on a horse farm. Any given day we are dealing with mud (the Carolina red clay kind!), or tractor grease and any other dog, cat, chicken goop you can think of…
Laundry Powder
1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
1/2 bar Castile Soap (grated)
Mix together
Add 1-2 Tablespoons per load to washer
Be careful when grating the bar soap, I have cut myself on the cheese grater. If you have a spin grater for the last little bit of bar soap it will prevent cuts. If not, I would use the last 1/4 of the bar as a travel size or for guests.
Laundry Liquid
1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
1 cup Liquid Castile Soap plus 2T Dish Liquid
1 gallon warm water
Stir, transfer to desired container
Add 1-2 Tablespoons per load to washer
For tough stains you can use a little of the liquid directly as a prewash treatment.
Fabric Softener
1-4 drops Essential Oil of choice (I use Loads of Fun)
Place 2-6 dryer balls in dryer with clothing
I like to put the essential oils into the washing machine fabric softener dispenser rather than in the dryer but either way works. Synthetic fabrics tend to have more static so you may need to add more essential oils and all of the wool dryer balls. I usually only need two per load but I own a lot of natural fabrics like cotton. The dryer balls last a very long time. I have had mine for about six months, some say they last years! If you don’t have the dryer balls just use a few more drops of essential oils in the wash cycle.
(I have heard of people using vinegar as fabric softener but it will ruin the hoses on your washing machine.)
So that’s it! This is a great rainy day activity and it is sort of like cooking and takes over the kitchen. It takes less than 20 minutes start to finish. Limit chemicals and spend your money on the fun things! (like horse stuff!)
See the next post for updated laundry tips and more about fabric softener!