Homemade Laundry Detergent - PERFECTED!

Finally - after a ton of research and a little bit of trial and error (emphasis on the ERROR) my quest for the perfect homemade laundry detergent is successful!

I've borrowed the basic DIY recipe that you will find on many blogs all over the interwebs, and tweaked it a little so it smells better and is a little more user friendly. It's still very low-cost and easy to do.

Here's what you need:

- 1 gallon jug or bucket (I used an old vinegar jug)
-  1 small bottle (8 oz I think) of Dr. Bronner's castile soap in your favorite scent
- 20 mule team borax
- washing soda
- essential oils (if you want to add scent)
- water
- a large pot
-  1/2 C measuring cup
- *A funnel is helpful but not completely necessary

NOTE: if you use my recipe please don't skip any steps! Skipping steps will demonstrate to you some of the "error" I mentioned earlier. Trust me.

Start with putting 12 cups of water in your large pot and putting it on low heat. (LOW is the key word here. You don't need to boil the water). Add about 1/4 of your Dr. Bronner's bottle to the water. This is also a good time to add your essential oils. (I used lavender DB's and dropped some lemon oil in - it smells lovely and clean.) Now use your 1/2 C measuring cup to add one HEAPING scoop of borax and one HEAPING scoop of washing soda. Stir this mixture and continue heating on low until all the powder is mixed in. Turn the heat off and let the mixture cool for a few minutes. If you've got a funnel stick it in your gallon jug and pour your lovely laundry detergent in.After this sits for a day or two it may "gel" a bit, but not much. Just give it a little shake before you use it.

I've been using this stuff for about a week now and I'm really happy with it. It gets our clothes nice and clean - from baby clothes, to delicates, to my husband's dirty work clothes! For small loads I use about 1/4 C, for large or especially dirty loads I use 1/2 C. It leaves the clothes with a barely-there fresh scent, which is exactly what I wanted. I do still use a stain spray for the tough stuff like engine grease and baby poop!

The cost of all ingredients is about $12 but they will make several batches of detergent. They're also useful in many other ways. Stay tuned for more ways to use them and have a "green" clean house!

Oooh (eew) that smell!

Caution - I'm about to share about body odor and deodorant. Don't read it if you're easily grossed out. If however, you're interested in being healthy and smelling lovely - read on!


Last month sometime I stopped wearing deodorant/antiperspirant. I started to notice that my armpits were smelling musty all of the time - even after I scrubbed in the shower. I am a very hygienic person, so I found this seriously troubling!

The first thing I tried was scrubbing with some witch hazel, thinking that the antiseptic would kill the yuck causing bacteria. It helped a bit but not as much as I'd hoped. So I decided to get a little more drastic. I stopped wearing the Dove at all. I started scrubbing with a good natural fiber brush - and some great smelling coconut-lemon soap that I found at the natural foods store. For a few days I just put lotion or coconut oil in there. And as you'd expect - for a few days I was kind of a stinky hippy... Although the coconut oil really curbed a lot of the stinky (It's a natural antiseptic - didja know?).

Now I'm using some cool aluminum free, paraben free stuff I got at Lush while I was pregnant. It doesn't have much of a smell (which is why I picked it when I was pregnant) and it seems to work pretty well. It's just a hunk that you have to scrub into your armpits but I don't mind too much. If it's a really hot day, or I'm really active that day it fails sooner than normal scary chemical stuff would - like 8 hours instead of 12.

I am not one of those people that enjoys my stink - if I am sweaty and gross I can tell and it bugs me! So when my pits stink I know - and can't wait to hit the shower! But now I am finding that I actually stink less.** If I'm just hanging out at home I can skip the deodorant altogether. And I don't smell myself until the next morning - when it is just obvious to me that I need to shower, not overwhelmingly gross. :)

**This could have a tiny bit to do with what we've been eating around here lately - lots of organic and very little (to no!) processed junk. 

So I've convinced my mom to switch to a crystal or some other aluminum free deodorant. Using coconut oil first as a moisturizer and sort of a prep.

So there you have it - several paragraphs about body odor and deodorant! Hope you find it helpful or inspiring - get rid of your cancer and alzheimer's causing yucky deodorant and get a little more healthy and a little less stinky!