I love laundry!

Yes I really do! But recently I have been a little disappointed in my laundry powder as it doesn't seem to dissolve and leaves white marks on the clothes.

But it's OK because I've found an extremely affordable, good for the environment laundry liquid to make! And it works even better than the powder.

I found it via Frugal Kiwi's website and have halved the recipe so that you can make it in a small bucket.

Laundry Liquid

1/2 Cup Borax
1/4 Cup of Washing Soda Crystals
1/2 bar of Sunlight soap or any other castile based soap
Essential oil

1. Grate the soap and melt it in 2 cups of water in a pot on a low heat. Avoid boiling it, it is ready when it has just melted.
2. Pour the melted soap mixture into a bucket and add 22 cups of warm water.
3. Add washing soda crystals and stir until dissolved.
4. Add borax and stir until dissolved.
5. Add essential oil to suit (I used about 20 drops of rose oil)
6. Cover the bucket with a towel or lid and let sit overnight.
7. In the morning the concoction should resemble a shiny globby gel. If there is water sitting on top simply mix it back in.
8. Pour the mixture via a funnel into clean milk bottles.
9. Use 1/2 cup per load.

This recipe made two 1.5L bottles full and one 2 litre bottle fill with a bit left over!!! Cost wise I think it works out to about 5c per load!!

Borax sounds like a horrible chemical but it is actually a mineral salt. You can read more about it here. As for buying it I sourced mine from Clorogene in Petone, Wellington for $13 for 2 litres. You can also buy it off Trademe and from Bin Inn but it is more expensive.

My clothes are clean and smell great!

I love laundry!

DIY Washing Powder and Hand Soap

 My friend Kath is a self-confessed greenie and has been reading Wendyl Nissen's "A Home Companion" which has lots of ideas on how to live like your Nana used to live.

I have been called a Nana many times, mainly by my Partner and mainly because of my incessant need to make jams and preserves. And I am ok with this! I have embraced my Nana-like qualities!! So making some recipes from this book is right up there with my values.

The washing powder was rather easy and extremely cheap to make. I bought a bag of baking soda for about $5, a box of washing soda crystals for $4 (both from Moore Wilson's) and a box of sunlight soap (6 pack) for about $3. I already had some essential oil. So here it is:

Washing Powder
1) Mix 3 cups of baking soda and 3 cups of washing crystals together.
2) Grate in 1 bar of sunlight soap
3) Add 10-20 drops of essential oil (I used rose).

Ready to use! I did two loads of washing today with a 35ml scoop per load and both came out clean and fresh. I'm not very good at math but I usually buy the EcoStore powder at around $7 for 500g. Roughly I made about the same amount for less than $3. One day I will get really good at maths and work it out properly!

Liquid Hand Soap
1) Grate 1 bar of soap
2) Add 1 cup of boiling water and whisk until combined. Leave for 1 hour.
3) After this time the mixture should have solidified again. Add another 1 cup of boiling water and whisk a bit more this time. Leave for an hour.
4) The soap should be more of a liquid consistency now. Water it down with more boiling water or heat up in the microwave or in a pot if it is too runny.
5) Pour into hand pump bottle ready to dispense.

My mixture was quite runny as I think my bar of soap was a bit on the small side so I heated it up a bit. It is still cooling at the moment and I've decided that if it doesn't thicken I'll just add some more soap to it and heat it up again. This is a probably a good way to use up those old bits of soap that you never seem to finish. I'm sure you could add essential oil to it too.

DIY Washing Powder and Hand Soap