Saturday, June 19, 2010

Laundry detergent is just a start...

It started here and then I heard this story, which was so inspiring. (Notice I am requesting you take the time to visit the links- I am keeping it vague on purpose). The the oil spill happened.

So, I am on a mission to lower the number of earths I would use by living the way I do. BTW speedskating has added an earth or two because of the amount of driving/flying I have to do. Time to get on the bike more.

So I decided to jump off the cliff so to speak and make my own laundry detergent after I read this article which was posted on Yahoo as a means to being frugal and reducing waste. The recipe that they lead you to was this one. This got me doing some research and this morning I embarked on my laundry soap crusade. The recipe I settled on was a dry mixture:

Ingredients:
1 bar of grated Castile soap
2 cups borax
2 cups of washing soda
mix well and put in a sealed airtight container
USE 2 TBS (or an 1/8 cup) per load.

I already decided that next time I am using liquid castile soap (a refill of course which I will get on my way home from Alison's wedding next weekend). I will try to figure out the equivalent to using a bar soap - should be easy enough - this will avoid the melting step. In other words I am thinking that the liquid version may be better- I found that the soap was too heavy for the borax and soda and sank to the bottom. I am washing my first load now. We'll see how well it works (fingers crossed).

More later...



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