The picture of being hippie organic on our homestead does not include wearing clothes until they can stand on their own. I like clean clothes - obsessively so. I like spotless laundry. I actually like sticking my nose between a pile of cloth diapers. And isn't it wonderful climbing into bed that smells like sunshine!
I have two busy farm children - one still in cloth diapers - who daily traipse half the homestead through our house. Daddy Buckaroo frequently tosses oil stained and mud soaked clothing in the wash basket so I need a laundry powder that actually works. I want laundry that has that zest of freshly picked lemons.
While people are becoming increasingly aware of what they put into their bodies, have you ever considered what you put on your body? Our skin is our biggest organ. Not only do soap, shampoo and other beauty products get absorbed into your body but the chemicals and toxins in conventional laundry detergents enter your body, through your skin.
For years I bought natural detergents. I make most of my family's everyday essentials (clothing, bread, cheese, soap, toothpaste, deodorant). But, quite frankly, I like to choose my battles. Laundry powder just seemed too challenging to tackle. I mean, I need to sleep sometime in a 24 hour period! And then a gardening discussion with a random stranger about the uses of borax, and it being a vital part of natural laundry powder, stopped me in my tracks. I use borax in our gardens. I tried it in the washing. I've never looked back.
Here is the very simple but efficient recipe. It has three essential ingredients. Four when you add essential oil. All you need is a food processor and a few minutes of your day.
Borax
Soda Ash (also called Wash Soda)
Castille soap (in my case I use my goats milk soap or Boerseep for us South Africans)
Your favourite essential oil - mine is lemon. Not only do I love that zesty fragrance but lemon has some powerful attributes such as being an antidepressant, antibacterial and antioxidant.
Although I make large quantities you can make smaller. We're on a farm and I have to wash for a lot of really dirty people. As much as I love this recipe, making it every day would get old. I make enough to last me comfortably for a month.
RECIPE:
800 grams Soda Ash
800 grams Borax
250 grams Castille soap (grated)
A generous dose of lemon essential oils. Lavender is also nice
Grate your bars of soap, if you haven't already. I don't like the manual labour so I use my food processor to grate and then add a blade for the powdering.
Divide your 3 ingredients into 3 or 4 parts so you don't strain the food processor. With a portion of the grated soap, soda ash and borax in the food processor add a few drops of your essential oil. I do this totally based on smell.
Let your machine run for a couple minutes. You'll notice the soap takes a while to break up and mix in. Then it's as simple as storing. Depending on the size washing machine and amount of dirt on the clothes, a couple tablespoons should suffice.
I love washing. Clothes are clean and smell like sunshine. Also, the view from the wash line is spectacular and the songs of the birds mingles with my children's laughter. So I don't mind that every day is laundry day.
I can totally relate to this. I used to live offgrid and had to make natural alternatives to avoid poisoning the wildlife down at the river. Prior to that, I experimented with soap nuts and homemade powder like yours but I didn't use borax as it irritated my skin. Nowadays I don't have much time so I use an eco detergent.
I loved your post and I can relate to sniffing the laundry. I'm sure my neighbors think I'm bonkers when they see me sniff everything that comes off the line haha.
Love your pictures, particularly the one of the diapers with the mountain backdrop. What a beautiful view you have.
Thank you for sharing. 🤗💚
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At least our neighbours are far away! They already think my organic ideas/ideology is bonkers. Thank you for your sweet comment @holisticmom.. It is a special mountain backdrop. The best part is that when it rains (which is seldom in our semi desert area) the waterfall runs. Then my view includes the sound and sight of that beautiful waterfall
You're most welcome.
I had this too on my land in Spain. Gosh, I am feeling all sentimental for my former offgrid life. Your views look very similar.
I guess it doesn't matter what the neighbors think when we know that family care and earth care are the reasons why we appear bonkers to others.
🤗😊💚
I was in, until I saw this line - you crazy nutjob you.
Love this = haven't seen a natural clothes washing recipe for YONKS - I really must get around to this one day, meanwhile, I'm just buying eco detergents. I'm sure this is more cost effective and smells great!
Crazy nut job? That is the loveliest thing anyone has said in a long time!! As far as making your own @riverflows, it definitely is about choosing your battles. If I were to make everything I would probably never sleep
Oooooh this brings back some precious memories. I remember when we first got into using essential oils we were making our own detergent too. We still have some of the ingredients including borax. It’s patiently sitting in a box awaiting it’s day view :D
When we started thinking about what goes on our bodies that’s when we switched to making our own. Then along the way more kids came and it just got more convenient buying the natural stuff.
I love that you use lemons, that’s one of my favorite scents too :)
Hmmmm maybe I’ll show this to my husband and he might want to dig out that box and put some of those ingredients to good use ;)
I enjoyed reading this ~
Another thing that we have in common @crosheille! We are blessed to have a very old lemon tree on our homestead. We think it's close to 100 years old. It produces bountifully twice a year. I use it in everything edible and otherwise! More kids. Less time. Yes well, I "only" have two. But with the multitudes of four legged and feathered responsibilities my time is very limited.
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I wonder, why these companies don't produce such products ?
Probably they don't realize the reality of how harmful regular products are. Apart from which it could compromise their business. Sad really @sanjeevm
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I absolutely love that lemon tree wow! So beautiful! This is very creative detergent recipe! Wow!
Thank you Lena! That lemon tree is amazing. It is nearly 100 years old and produces twice a year a bumper crop of delicious lemons. I love them. I use the entire fruit and often freeze the skin to use through the dry patches
My pleasure Sweetie! That is truly incredible!!! By the way, what happen to your previous account?
Oh Lena it is a sad story. Around the time I decided to get back to writing and learned about Hive my laptop was giving trouble. It's old and it suddenly starting freezing or shutting down. My husband was trying to save everything .....mostly my millions of photos and all the information I have off my two businesses (which in the last year are no more :( We have spent hours scanning all the hard drives for the original information. But somehow the keys off steemit were overwritten. Wierdly enough I can access @buckaroo on Steemit with the new keys but not here. I tried for months with some help but can't retrieve or rewrite them. So @buckaroo is in solitary confinement. And I'm starting over
Oh dear! So can you at least access your wallet on Steem?
Yes. I emptied it. No point continuing there. But I was hoping to pick up with @buckaroo. I'm very grateful for you and so many who have helped me build my reputation again
Hello. I understand about the smell of clean clothes that are truly clean. I grew up with my family utilizing the famed 20 Mule Team Borax laundry detergent and other products containing Borax.
The smell of lemon or orange in your wash is heavenly. I can relate to placing your face between a clothing item. In my case, it's the bath towels.
Thanks for sharing your laundry mix.
Thank you for taking the time to comment @justclickindiva. I'm glad you relate to sticking your face in the bath towels. I love their crispiness and the zesty smell too! We don't get that laundry detergent here in South Africa but I certainly know of it
Wow, I'm so behind on reading your posts! I'd love to try this recipe some day. I also home-make most things, but laundry soap is something I've struggled with. We have VERY hard water and real soap ends up sticking to the clothes. It's a crazy chemical reaction. I've had a lot of laundry disasters. We have water filters on the house now but they are expensive and clog up fast. I am currently using a liquid laundry detergent but would REALLY love to switch to something healthier when we can get our water under control. Thank you for sharing your recipe!
And I am behind answering your comments! Hard water is a big problem. Ours is also hard and high in iron. What I do is run the machine empty on a hot cycle and conventional laundry detergent at least once a week. My husband was regularly replacing filters and dismantling the machine until he realized while it is gentle on clothing my natural detergent is gentle on the machine which needs a bit more aggressive cleaning. Maybe that helps?
That does help! We also have iron! Everything is stained orange. I don’t have white clothes. The white tile shower is orange. It’s impossible to get off. I use vinegar most of the time to clean, but when it’s really bad, the only thing that works is chemical crap. I run everything on a heavy duty cycle. I clean the machine often. I need to research the problem more because I had so much trouble with natural laundry soap. But I know it’s better!!