Simplifying life 2

Home made laundry soap is one of the simplest things to make. It costs next to nothing and is safer for the environment, less toxic for your body and good for your wallet.

For me this was one of the first things I did because of allergies. I have severe allergies to most chemicals. I break out in hives and get migraines from scents. I started making my own laundry soap about 8 years ago. From time to time I have bought some of the hypo-allergenic laundry soaps, but I can make it so much cheaper that it makes no sense for me to spend 3 or 4x's as much for the same product.

What you need for laundry soap:
Basic's
1 box washing soda (NOT baking soda!)
1 box borax
1 bar fels naptha soap
water

1 bottle to mix soap in and 1 to store dry soap in.

Fragrant soap:
I have used rose water or a variety of essential oils.

Using a cheese grater (preferably one that is just for soap) grate the bar of Fels Naptha soap. Pour both the borax and the washing soda into a mixing bowl and add the grated soap bar into this mixing well. For a liquid soap pour 1 cup of dry soap into a 1 gallon bottle. Add water to fill bottle and shake well. You can then add the scent 1-3 drops of essential oils for a 1 gallon bottle. Or in place of regular water use rose water.

For cleaning I use:
Castle soap, A few drops in a sink full of water will clean an entire room.

Lemon: I have not found much that lemon doesn't help with. A little lemon and baking soda cleans flat surfaces, and stubborn food stains on pots and pans. Plus it will clean brass pots like nobody's business.

Vinegar: You can mix vinegar and water with lemon in a spritzer bottle to deodorize a room. The vinegar will dissipate and as it does it takes the stink with it. Of course white vinegar also is a natural fabric softener, so put 1/4 cup in the wash in the fabric softener holder and your clothes get deodorizer and are naturally softer. There is also the wonderful no streak clean that it leaves behind on mirrors, windows, and flat top cook stoves.

Baking Soda: as mentioned in the other two you can clean a lot of things with this. I also like to sprinkle it on carpets and sweep it in, Then after an hour I vacuum the floor well. The room is refreshed and the carpet is cleaner.

Hydrogen Peroxide: That's right, regular over the counter peroxide. I use this to clean stains like blood out of clothes or even off counters. Animal blood sometimes will stain counter tops and a few drops of peroxide will bubble up and dissolve the blood proteins.

For the dishwasher I always just use borax & washing soda. Then I saw this post and am now going to make my own single use packets that can be found on this blog.

These are the cleaning products I use. You will notice there is no bleach listed, nor is there any ammonia listed. Both of those products are highly toxic and I do not use them.