Thrifty Thursday: Homemade No-Grate Laundry Soap

(Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Here's a post I typed up a few days ago to share with you all--I thought I would share it even though I didn't THINK anyone would be making laundry detergent on Thanksgiving! BUT when my laundry room door opened during our travel day yesterday and my full gallon of detergent fell out into my trailer--Thanksgiving suddenly became a day to also make detergent. Hope you can use this recipe! I have enjoyed it! :) 

   You may have seen from my Facebook status a few weeks ago that I was looking in to making my own laundry detergent. Like I said in my last TT post, I am cautiously treading into the waters of DIY cleaning products. I have such faith in Scrubbing Bubbles and Tide, but my wallet is slowly convincing me that maybe I can make something that works just as well, if not better, than the store bought stuff.
   I started doing the research. I read lots of lots of recipes on blogs, and the hundreds of comments that followed. I decided to try this recipe for "No-Grate Homemade Laundry Soap" from One Good Thing by Jillee (really like her blog!)
   So far, so good! My favorite things about it are obviously that I don't have to mess with bars of soap, whether that's grating or food processing. Yes, it may be a little bit more expensive to use Dawn, but its worth it to me. I have very limited space to store supplies, and since I already use Dawn for alllllllll my dishwashing and some cleaning supplies, I'm set to go!
Now I do my recipe a little bit differently than Jilllee. Like I said, I don't have a lot of room to store gallons of laundry detergent, but I do a lot of laundry with two babies and a tiny washing machine. I decided to make a much more concentrated version of her laundry detergent. I only use 1/4 cup (she uses a cup). A few tips:

• It IS very watery. That's ok! I usually add it to my top loading washer after it has filled up with water some so I know it's not just falling down into the holes. :)
• I have also only used this on a top loading machine. So, for all your front loaders, I would read the comments before trying it. The Dawn does make it sudsey (at least for me) so I don't want you to have bubbles pouring out of your washer. :) Many of her readers with front loaders use it.
• I only use the original, concentrated blue Dawn. As far as I know, this kind of Dawn is their "miracle product" and truly the most powerful of the line. You can try it with a different scent, but I would stick with the original blue.
• One of the biggest things I was looking for was my girls' skin reaction to it! I have been using All Free and Clear since Evi was a baby cause I would see tiny red bumps all over their faces and bodies if I used anything with scents. They even get the bumps sometimes from people holding them with scented stuff on their clothes! So far so good...have not noticed any reactions in the past two weeks. If I do start to see bumps, I am going to make a separate batch using Dr. Bronner's Liquid Castile Baby Soap in the place of Dawn.

Ok so here is my concentrated version of her recipe!
HOMEMADE NO-GRATE LAUNDRY SOAP
Adapted from "One Good Thing by Jillee"

Ingredients:

• 1 gallon (16 cups :) boiling water (I boiled mine in an electric kettle, but you can just do it in a 2 gallon pot on the stove
• 3/4 cup Borax
• 3/4 cup Washing Soda
• 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons Original, Concentrated Blue Dawn Dishwashing Liquid

Instructions:

• Add Borax, Washing Soda, and Dawn to the boiled water in a pot or large bucket that can handle very hot water.
• Stir to dissolve the powders.
• Depending on the container you will use to store the liquid, you may need to let it cool off. You can throw a towel over the top and stick it outside (it's cold here! :) or in the fridge. I bought a thin, 2.25 gallon plastic container from Walmart, and you will need to let it cool before putting it in something like that (learned the hard way.)
• And you're done! I would use the lid of an old detergent bottle to measure it out. Sometimes with a fresh batch, I need to shake the jug some to mix the ingredients again (the liquid should have a very slight blue tint to it)

At home in my cozy laundry "room" :)

Try it out! I've recently used this detergent to wash blankets, sheets, and stuffed animals that had been thrown up on--they came out great! I think that detergent like this may not work for you depending on the type of water and washer you have--but it's worth a try! I'm enjoying it so far and LOVING how much money I'm saving!

Thrifty Thursday: Homemade Scent-free Baby Wipes for Sensitive Skin

Ok, let's first establish a few ground rules about my DIY recipes...
-I am not an "all green products" girl. A lot of the recipes I'm using ARE but some are not. If you are, you are welcome to tweak the recipe to suit your needs.
-I am a very busy person on top of all my mom responsibilities, so I will never post anything that hasn't saved me a considerable amount of money by doing it. Most of these processes are very quick and easy, too. No hand-crocheted diapers here (no idea if that is even legit but it just sounds like something that would take too much time to be worth the money ;)
-I LOVE to clean. Like, adore it. When I need time alone, my husband knows to take the babes so I can scrub our trailer from top to bottom. It's my de-stresser.
-Most of these recipes will require minimal storage space of ingredients, as I DO live in a pretty small space. So expect them to use a lot of the same ingredients!
-Last...I will only post recipes that I have been using and found to really work! One reason it's been hard for me to do my own cleaning products is cause I REALLY want to know things are clean and I usually trust a name brand. But, at this point in life, Tide laundry detergent is not an option, so homemade we go! ;)
Homemade Scent-free Baby Wipes for Sensitive Skin
I originally avoided making baby wipes because it seemed impossible to find things for sensitive skinned babies that was worth spending the money. I dunno about little boys, but my little girls are extremely sensitive *down there*. They get rashes easily, and I can't give them bubble baths because of UTIs. I have always just used Kirkland's sensitive baby wipes from Costco but wanted to try making my own. I did a lot of reading, and combined info to develop my own recipe that works. See the very end for helpful tips that I have discovered along the way.
Ingredients:
1 roll paper towel (only recommended brands that I have seen are Bounty and Viva..the rest are too thin. I use Bounty)
Rubbermaid containers (I use a combo of 4 Rubbermaid 6 and 6.2 oz. Four, so I always have three empty and clean when I need to make more wipes, but am not quite finished with the last container).
2 cups boiled water, slightly cooled
1 T witch hazel
2 T pure liquid Castile soap (I recommend Dr. Bronner's Unscented Baby Mild)
1 T organic coconut oil
2 drops pure tea tree oil
2-3 drops pure eucalyptus



Process:
-Measure out 2 cups of boiling water into a glass measuring cup.
-Add all ingredients, stir well. (May take some time for coconut oil to completely dissolve.)
-Cut a paper towel roll into thirds using a SHARP non-serrated knife. (The roll will shred like crazy if you use serrated OR if your ceramic knife has a slight nick in it...personal experience ;)
-Fill each container with enough of the water mixture to cover the bottom.
-Place the paper towel cut side down in each container.
-Pour the rest of the mixture over the tops of the paper towel.
-Cram the lids onto the containers and turn them upside down to get soaked for ten minutes. Sometimes I use rubber bands to keep the lids on until the paper towels shrink and soften.
-After a few minutes, pull the cardboard piece from the middle of each wipes roll and pull your first wipe up from the middle!
We have loved these so far! If you're an information-junkie like I am, keep reading for more tips or observations from me. But here are your very own scent-free, homemade baby wipes!



Additional info:
-If you can find the right container, you only have to cut the towels in half. I haven't been able to find any rubbermaids big enough at a reasonable price, so I do mine in thirds to fit containers I already have.
-Some people make these with just baby shampoo, baby oil, and hot water. However, like I said before, my girls have really sensitive skin, and have you looked in the aisles for scent-free baby shampoo or oil?? The Dr Bronner's is reasonably priced for how little you actually use of it (and you can also use it in homemade laundry detergent for babies who need unscented detergents!) You could substitute a lot of different oils instead of coconut...I first tried olive oil, but it left a really funky smell on our fingers after we used them. Then I tried no oil, but they were a little too rough and harsh. This brand of coconut oil can be found at Walmart! The witch hazel is an antiseptic and helps prevent diaper rash. The tea tree kills bacteria and keeps mold from growing in the wipes (also using boiled water keeps this from happening). The eucalyptus just adds a nice scent to help with the overpowering smell of tea tree oil. ;)
-These also make great wipes for hands, make up removers, etc.
-Like I said, this is just a recipe I've discovered for us and our circumstances--it may cost a little to get the items at first, but all these things are ingredients I've been using in other things for the home. And it's nice to be able to make a batch whenever you're running out to keep from having to go to the store!
-Comment with any questions or things that have worked for you!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone