Laundry Soap is Dope

Here is another overdue project from my Personal Challenge 2011. Better late than never!


Homemade laundry soap is pretty stinkin’ popular anymore, with half of people saying it works as well as Tide, and the other half saying it’s a waste of time. I used a pretty standard recipe:
1 cup Borax
1 cup washing soda
2 cups soap shavings*

I just grate up the soap, stir in the Borax and soda, and call it a day. Easiest stuff ever. Lots of people swear by the liquid version, but I just can’t be bothered. Plus, from what I’ve read, it’s a bit trickier to get the proper consistency. With the powdered stuff I just toss about 2 Tablespoons to a large load of laundry. I also keep a 50/50 mix of borax and washing soda on hand for really grimy loads. I like to put the soap in first, run some hot water on it for a few seconds to speed up the dissolving process, and then after I load the washer with clothes I switch back to cold water. Seems to be working fine for me! Can’t say that it works worse than any other brand I’ve used, and I’ve found I don’t really miss all the fragrances (ok, sometimes).

So far I’ve used Fels Naptha laundry bar soap, Zote laundry bar soap, and Kirk’s Castile bar soap. I think they all work about the same, but I don’t care for the ingredients or smell of the Fels Naptha or Zote. Both knock me on my ass when I'm grating them up, and I don't care to stand too close to the container when I scoop it out, either. (The scent is extremely faint in the clean clothes, thankfully) Kirk’s is about as close to old-fashioned lye soap as I have been able to find in stores, but I suspect it would leave a residue on the clothes over the long term.The two laundry bars are meant to wash away cleanly, while body soap is typically designed to leave a fine layer of glycerin or other skin softening substance behind. Sometime this winter I want to try making my own laundry soap from lard and lye, just for the comparison. I really can't settle on which I prefer, so for now I just bounce back and forth.

Action shot! WEEEE!

Oh, and I rock a Downy ball full of white vinegar as my "fabric softener." It normalizes the ph of the clothes after all that washing soda, and adds to the disinfecting power. I have never smelled the vinegar on the clothes when doing it this way, and my towels are reasonably soft.

*A note on measuring soap shavings. This has to be the most confusing part of all the laundry soap recipes floating around the internet. Many recipes only specify "1 bar," however the popularly used soaps vary quite a bit in size! The gold standard, Fels Naptha, is 7oz, while Kirk's is 5oz, and Zote is a whopping 14oz! Ivory, another popular choice, is 4 or 5 ounces. BUT, there's an additional problem to just the bar size. Some of them contain a lot more water than others. In my experience, Zote is a REALLY soft soap. It can be a mess to try and grate. Out of curiosity, I grated up a bar and let the shavings dry out for a month. (or two... I forgot it was there!) The difference in weight was amazing. A completely dried out bar of Zote was close to 10oz! The volume of shavings also dropped A LOT!  That would make a big difference when measuring soap by the bar or cup! It's really no wonder the results can be so varied with the same recipe. What we need is a way to make this predictable with every batch.

That little red line marks how much soap I started with. Crazy, right?

In the future, I plan on grating and drying out a new bar of soap long before I need it, and then measuring equal amounts soap, borax, and washing soda by volume. If your shavings are large, you may have to put the soap and some of the washing soda in a food processor to break it down further. This helps to keep everything evenly distributed. I recommend throwing a hand towel over the machine, as there will be a small cloud of soap dust and it will make you want to gag.

Having said all that, I must admit that I don’t use homemade stuff for all my laundry. I used Ecos free and clear for cloth diapers (although I no longer CD, thanks to ammonia issues). My musty summer towels and nasty kitchen washcloths never got fully clean with Ecos. The smell would cling, or reappear with a vengeance as soon as the washcloth got wet. After one wash with double strength homemade soap, the smell was GONE! I am impressed. I need to re-test the hubby's workout clothes to make a final decision. I used to keep a small bottle of original Tide handy for big cleaning jobs, but not anymore. I'm too cheap. Man-smell is almost impossible to kill without the enzymes in Tide, so workout clothes will be my ultimate test.

Anyone else use homemade laundry soap? What kinds of bar soap have you used and which do you like best? I really can't decide and it's driving me nuts!

UPDATE 2013: I pretty much stick with Fels Naptha for convenience. I let the bar air dry for at least a month before grating. This will give you nice, fine shavings that will stay evenly distributed throughout the mix. I no longer bother running hot water on the soap before loading clothes, it doesn't seem to make a difference. My current "recipe" is equal parts dried soap shavings, borax, and washing soda; occasionally I will add Oxyclean (usually generic) if I have it on hand, same proportions as the rest. I still use 2Tbsp per load. Try it, you'll like it!

DID YOU SAY “HOMEMADE DEODORANT?”

No, but now that you mention it, I did make homemade deodorant!

Before I can get to that, there is a little matter that I need to address. I started this blog with grand intentions, but finding the time to write about my escapades has been harder than the projects themselves. While I have all sorts of fun stuff to share with you, I feel I owe you a bit more regarding my overly-hyped Personal Challenge 2011.

When I decided to do this challenge, I failed to take into account just how much (little) I clean. I would mix up a 2 cup batch of window cleaner, clean all the glass in my house, and then find myself with 1 ¾ cups of a cleaner I really didn’t care for. Fast forward about two (ok, four) weeks and I finally get around to cleaning the glass again. Clearly, I don’t go through a lot of cleaner! I considered dumping the inferior stuff down the drain and starting over, but I just can’t bring myself to do it! After all, my whole goal was to reduce waste and cost (and boredom)! I suppose I could just clean more often.

Oh man, I just laughed so hard…

So far I have experimented with 4 out of the 9 items on my original list. To be honest, I’ve yet to come across a cleaner that blew me away. Normally, when (if) I clean, I use little more than a damp/soapy washcloth, or Windex and a paper towel. That includes sticky, greasy messes in the kitchen. This method requires more elbow grease than commercial cleaners, but I‘ve become accustomed to it. With my homemade cleaners, it seemed that I still had to scrub as much as before.  I definitely have more experimenting ahead of me. I’m determined to formulate a good cleaner!

In the meantime, here are the results of one of my attempts:

Homemade Deodorant
6-8 Tbsp coconut oil
¼ cup baking soda
¼ cup cornstarch/arrowroot powder
3-5 drops Tea tree essential oil, or any other essential oil you like

Combine baking soda and cornstarch. Work in coconut oil by hand until it is roughly the same consistency as commercial deodorant. Mix in essential oils. You can pack this into an old deodorant container or use a shallow lidded container.

I found my recipe at Passionate Homemaking, and it really couldn’t be much simpler. I’ll tell ya what, this stuff works pretty dang well! The first week I wore this, I kept sniffin’ my pitts. For quality control purposes, of course (not). Not once did I smell bad! To be fair, I don’t do a lot of strenuous activity, but I do still tend to sweat and stink after a while. (sorry, TMI)

Apparently, many people can get a rash from this recipe, either from a corn allergy or from the baking soda. I have yet to get a rash myself though. I’m wondering if some of the people who reacted to the baking soda were actually reacting to the lack of acidity on the skin. The surface of the skin is naturally acidic, and baking soda is extremely alkaline. Remember the vinegar and baking soda volcanoes in grade school? That’s the acid and alkaline neutralizing each other.  With that in mind, I wonder if a cotton ball of (diluted?) vinegar at the end of the day would restore the skin’s balance. I’ll have to try this sometime.

What surprised me most with this experiment was how much more aware I was of what commercial deodorant did to my underarms. I’ve always hated the odd feel of my underarm skin, but didn’t think I could change it. Just a weird, plastic feel that seemed to repel water and didn’t let me get a close shave. A week of homemade deodorant changed that. I think the grit from the baking soda and the motion of my arm gradually scrubbed away the dead skin and the old deodorant residue. I kept finding bits of gunk that I thought were clumps of baking soda, but after two weeks I no longer see clumps and my skin is in incredible condition.

I had suspected that commercial deodorant was the cause of the plasticy feel, but when I went to clean out an old deodorant container I was convinced it was the culprit. I had NO IDEA it would be so difficult to clean out! I went through a TON of dish soap and the deodorant just laughed at it. Seriously, it didn’t affect it at all. Finally I boiled some water in my tea kettle and poured that in the container. I let it sit a minute, then dumped it (carefully!) and refilled it with the boiling water. HALLELUIA! Hot, hot, HOT water turned out to be the key. The heat softened the greasy deodorant enough that I was able to pour most of it down the drain (with my luck it’s still stuck to the pipes somewhere).  In the end, it took several hot water soaks and a final scrub with dish soap to get that baby squeaky clean.

Fill the base, chill it, then gradually pack in the rest. 

Wanna know the funny part? A few weeks later the container broke.

In retrospect, the container would have benefitted from a thin layer of the original deodorant. This would have allowed the solid mass to slide up and down more easily. I broke the container because the clicky base wasn't strong enough to push up the solid, refrigerated deodorant. When I remade this a few weeks ago, I completely forgot about this little tip. I just moved the container to the fridge for the summer, so we'll see if I run into the same problem.

A final note on homemade deodorant, be mindful of the room temperature. Coconut oil is liquid below 76 degrees F, so you may want to keep your mix in the fridge during the warmer months. Cold deodorant will definitely wake you up, but it’s also quite refreshing in the dead of summer. Or I’m just weird.

I have several other posts lined up, but I won't be able to get the pictures off my camera for a few more days. Stay tuned, there's some fun stuff in store for the next few weeks!

In under the wire!

With five minutes left to the year, I can safely say that "Personal Challenge 2011" was just a WEEEE bit of a failure. Oh, I actually made some of the stuff I planned. I just forgot I had a blog. A blog I was supposed to post all my wonderful projects in. What can I say, I found Pinterest. My life is forever changed!

I have high hopes for next year, so don't give up on me yet! So long 2011, you were fun and exhausting but now it's time for a new year and new challenges. I still plan on posting my home and body projects at some point. Hopefully I will get those up in the next month or so. Don't hold me to that though.

Happy New Year!

Personal Challenge 2011

 
In the last few weeks I made the sudden, impulsive decision to go au natural with my cleaning and body products. I soon found myself spending hours gathering recipes and testing a few out. It didn't take me too long before I realized I would need to set definite boundaries on this project or it would carry me (and my wallet) away completely! My overall goal is to replace as many household products as possible by the end of the year.My main objectives are to:

1. Reduce household expenditures
2. Switch out commercial products for more natural, child safe alternatives
3. Try to use edible ingredients where possible

 Once I had my goals set, I began to look at what products I currently used. They seemed to easily fit into two categories: Home and Body. This is the list I came up with for each category.

HOME

• Laundry detergent
• Glass cleaner
• Dish soap
• All-purpose antibacterial cleaner
• Toilet cleaner
• Heavy-duty scrubbing cleaner

BODY

• Deodorant
• Shampoo
• Body wash
• Face wash
• Conditioner
• Hair remover
• Toothpaste

   I didn't include fabric softener on my list because I have already replaced it with distilled vinegar. I use roughly 1/4c in a downy ball and toss it in the wash. My mom likes to use a ball of aluminum foil in her dryer to eliminate static. I don't use it because static isn't an issue in our disgustingly humid house, but it works great for Mom.

Once I saw everything I used, I figured there were several things that could possibly be replaced with a single item. After paring down my needs and surfing the web (do people say that anymore?) for recipes, I came up with a master list. With 4 months left in the year, I'm hoping to try and perfect two products per month. I did this primarily to slow myself down. If I had my way, I'd be in the kitchen concocting all of these at once!

THE MASTER LIST (I have updated this list as I've found replacements)

• Laundry soap
• All-purpose cleaner and scrubbing solution
• Dish soap (I opted for original Dawn. It's such a strong surfactant that it has multiple uses)
• Glass cleaner
• Deodorant
•  Face wash/scrub ( my "hair wash" does the job, plus a little brown rice flour when I'm feeling feisty)
• Shampoo/body wash (for body wash, we now use Kirk's Castile bar soap.)
• Hair conditioner (don't need it! See shampoo post [coming soon!].)
• Toothpaste
• Hair remover (yes, I mean wax. I found a recipe and I'm just crazy enough to try it!)

 I have no idea if any of my homemade replacements will become a permanent household item, but it's sure going to be fun to experiment!