Kim brought the makings for homemade laundry soap to my house. Kady and Kim made it. They grated fels naptha which is a heavy duty soap that is has been made for over 100 years. Also they used washing soda which is also called soda ash. It is technically sodium carbinate (not baking soda which is sodium bicarbinate). It's purpose is to remove dirt and odors. Then they added borax which is a natural occuring mineral (sodium borate) that is used as a deoderizer and whitener. You can add essential oils for scent if you like as well, but the fels naptha has quite a fragrant smell on it's own that is the laundry clean smell (without that sickening perfume smell). It's natural and is low on the suds. There is another type that is powder and not liquid, but I usually prefer the liquid. I usually add baking soda to each wash, but with this I skip it.I use Method or Seventh Generation fabric softners because they are chemical free and vegetable oil based instead of using animal tallow (it leaves a gummy residue on your clothes). By using natural plant oils they make clothes soft. It's even safe to use the greywater afterwards because it's biodegradeable (greywater is water that has been used that you recycle and use for other purposes, like watering plants...).
I still use vinegar in the rinse cycle with my towels because I am very wary of musty smelly towels. I want to wipe my clean washed face with a clean washed towel, not a mop smelling bacteria breeder.
7 comments:
Fels Naptha looks like grated American Cheese and I kept inclining to want to eat it.
That is so cool that you do that! Do you always use homemade stuff? Have you read the book "Little Heathens" by Mildred Kalish? She's an old broad who grew up during the depression and she tells about all the stuff they used for cooking and cleaning and even has recipes for home medicines and beauty products. And it's funny too. There was a recipe for age spots that I'm going to use next summer.
Sorry Sarah, but I am laughing at you. You evidently don't plan on getting old until next summer?
Kasey you are quite the info maniac. I am so impressed and am so sold on going green. Kim made a batch for me of the Fels and I also had her make a batch using Castille. Haven't tried them yet, but am anzious to.
What is the box from Tobies doing there?
We're not THAT green! We still eat gooey sugar stuff. But I s'pose since Tobies makes them onsite, they're technically "home"-made??
ooooh! how do you like it with castille soap? Haven't tried that yet, but all my hand soap in my house is Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castille Soap. I use the peppermint castille bar soap too! It is so refreshing.
Sarah-I am totally getting that book. Thank you for telling me about it. My current green collection of books are: Green Housekeeping by Ellen Sandbeck (I think she lives in Duluth), Green Clean-The Environmentally Sound Guide to Cleaning Your Home by Linda Mason Hunter & Mikki Halpin, and The Green Book-The everyday guide to saving the planet one simple step at a time by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas McDonough. I also use Seventh Generation that you can get at Target. This has been our first try at the homemade soap, I've been using chemical free products for a year or two now.
Kasey, you sound like an advertisement.
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