We started making out own dishwasher and laundry soap a while back and I wanted to update you on how that went.
Dishwasher soap was a loss. It got the dishes clean, but it left an ugly white film of borax on the dishes. Yuck! Adding citric acid to the rinse was very effective in removing the film…but then the process was prohibitively expensive. We’ve gone back to Trader Joe’s environmentally friendly dishwasher soap, though I may try again if I come across any new ideas for how to make it work better.
The laundry soap worked beautifully…until summer hit. The homemade laundry detergent is good for run of the mill laundry, but it just isn’t up to the heavy-sweating, garden grunged, ‘damp basement with a mold problem’ summer laundry. To be fair, neither is Trader Joe’s environmentally friendly laundry detergent. We’re getting a big bottle of Tide to get the smell and grey out of the clothes, but we’ll go back to homemade once the weather cools off and save the rest of the Tide for next summer. It’s a lot cheaper, and I didn’t notice any difference until we started getting really dirty—which has been an issue every summer of my adulthood. That’s why I keep going back to Tide.
15 September 2009
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Sorry to hear the homemade soaps didn't work out. I've given up on trying to make those two particular products. I use to use Tide, as well, until we discovered Bio-Kleen products. It is a company out of Wash. State and it is the *only* brand of natural products that actually work as well as products like Tide. Even my husband thinks Bio-Kleen is awesome (which is really saying something!). We use their dishsoap (which I buy in bulk and add my own essential oils to), dishwasher soap, laundry soap and an enzyme product to get rid of smelly problems (it even gets rid of guinea pig odor!). You should check them out. I haven't had to use Tide in years--just so long as I bleach or add bluing agent to my whites every six months or so.
ReplyDeleteAre you still using your homemade shampoo and/or vinegar rinse? My favorite shampoo is no longer sold so now I have to try to create a version of my own. Arg.