Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Make your own cleaning supplies

I have been doing this consistently for about a year and I love both of these recipes. If you search, you will find hundreds of variations of these so if you find something isn't working well for your needs, you can always add or exchange ingredients.

Laundry Detergent
I can get all of this at Publix in the laundry detergent aisle. It's about $8 for all three things but the washing soda and Borax make about six  batches. A triple batch lasts me about five months and I do at least one load a day. I use it for cloth diapers, as well.

  • 1 bar Fels Naptha soap
  • 1 1/2 cups of Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda
  • 1/2 Borax 
  • a sprinkling of baking soda (more if you have hard water, I add it to cut down the ammonia smell from the cloth diapers)
I need to get a food processer but I just use a cheese grater and grate the Fels Naptha into a container with a lid (I use a 6.5 qt. Rubbermaid bucket.) Add the rest of the ingredients and stir. You only need 1-2 tablespoons for each load depending on how dirty the clothes seem.

All Purpose Cleaning Solution
I buy all of this from Lucky Vitamin. I've used the same shipment of ingredients for over 6 months and they are no where near empty.

  •   .5 oz of Aubrey’s Earth Aware Cleanser ($5.42/32 oz. bottle)
  • 10 drops NOW Tea Tree Oil ($5.39/1 oz. bottle) 
  • 20 drops NOW Lemon Oil ($10.19/4 oz. bottle) 
  • Mix in spray bottle with filtered water
  • Final cost: $0.20 per bottle of household cleaner

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