Everyday Bliss

As you know, I’m always looking for ways to make things simpler, easier and less expensive while being sustainably good for the planet and all of us living on it. I angsted for ages over the gargantuan costs of organic laundry soap but finally caved when in good conscience, I couldn’t put waste products into our precious water supply. I bought all the brands you’ve seen in healthfood stores and didn’t find one worked better than any other. They cost more than the common grocery store brands, and I knew that the key ingredients could really be had for pennies.

What a racket!

Make Your Own Laundry Soap for Pennies

In just as much angst over the plastic bottle recycling issue, I started making a simple laundry powder out of old homemade soap that had gone a bit hard. Grating it on a cheese grater proved knuckle-busting so figuring it was a clean job anyway, I busted out the Cuisinart and processed large chunks of cut up soap until fine meal resulted.

Caveat: WAIT UNTIL THE DUST CLEARS before you open the food processor’s container!  You can easily inhale soap dust and trust me, you don’t wanna. I say this from experience.

I mixed the resulting two cups of soap powder with equal parts washing soda and borax which you can find cheap as chips in any grocery store. This will give you 24 ounces of product, enough for 12 loads. I store this in a large plastic dry goods storage jar. Be sure to add BEFORE clothes and turn water on so any dust is damped down before you lean over the washing machine to put the clothes in.

Cost Analysis

Given I’d made the soap myself from micro-amounts of essential oils, inexpensive lye and fats (olive oil, coconut oil & solid shortening) that were lying around in the cabinet, this mix cost me pennies a load to make. I estimate less than ten cents per quarter-cup scoop and it cleans the laundry like nobody’s business.

Since the essential oils used to scent the soap had seen better days, I added a few drops of lavender and a few of tea tree – both of these are antiseptic and tea tree is known to kill germs on contact. Grand total, maybe 12 cents a load. Any kind of old soap (exceptions: soaps with cold cream, herb or grit particles added) will work great.

Slightly Rancid Is Still Peachy-Keen…

If the soap is a bit rancid, that’s okay, you can still use it to great effect to clean your clothes and can add a drop or two of essential oil (see “Dryer Sheet” below) to eliminate any rough scent, though scent doesn’t tend to transfer in the washer, even using cold water.  Also, you need hard soap for this, not the soft creamy type of bar. If I had to purchase a soap to use for this purpose, I’d get either Kirk’s Castile, Ivory (or just use Ivory Snow) or Dr. Bronner’s Lavender bar.

Dryer Sheet Of Forever

When I started eliminating allergic substances years ago, I came to realize dryer sheets were one of the worst irritants. We had also just gotten a pile of white cotton shop towels to use for cleaning instead of paper towels. I annointed one of these with a few drops of lavender oil, and threw that into the dryer with a wet load.

Also into the dryer went two clean tennis balls which have the same effect as the village washerwoman beating the clothes with a rock to soften the fibers.  They also reduce static, lint and wrinkle reduction. There are also plastic balls with spikes that you can buy. We have both and I don’t notice a difference in the way they work – tennis balls are less expensive. So both white cloth and tennis balls – with or without your choice of essential oils does the trick so fine you won’t miss those artificially smelly and immune system-compromising dryer sheets. I still use the same cloth I started with six years ago. Wash it every ten loads or so, then when it comes out just add a few drops of oil and toss it in wet and oiled with that load’s drying. Gotta love it!

Caveat: The slight fuzz on tennis balls may come off on your dark and nubby-textured clothing.  Leave out of the dark load if this is an issue, or hang dry fuzzy/nubby textured dark clothes.

Also, make sure dryer cloth is white as oils may cause dyes in colored cloths to come off on your load of laundry. Other essential oils that make your laundry smell fantastic:  ylang-ylang, orange, neroli, eucalyptus or lemon. Try sandalwood when you have a date lined up – the scent is faint but will deepen subtly when your body warms the clothing!

Fancy a “hair gel” textured liquid-y soap? The Comfortable Hippies have one recipe here.

Kellie from “Make it From Scratch” (wonderful place!) offers her recipe, similar to mine here.

While you’re at it, check out their great Make It From Scratch Thanksgiving. Your game plan & recipes = done!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, November 14th, 2009 at 9:16 am and is filed under Cultural Evolution, Eco Sustainability, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.