Laundry is one of those needs that never goes away and hardly lets up. In fact, I have a load in the dryer and the washer right now. But hey, I'm not complaining...for five long, long years I hand washed outside with a James washer and hung everything on a clothes line.
Although laundry never seems to change, the soap we use certainly seems to. When we first started out we used Tide with Frebreeze. Then after wising up to the harsh chemicals, we switched to the all natural, plant based Ecos brand. Once I started feeling my homesteading bone kick in, still a few years away from actual homesteading, I started making my own. It was liquid based and used Borax, Washing soda and Dr. Bronner's bar soap. This worked alright, although our clothes didn't always come out smelling fresh. Then we hit the homestead.
I was back to using Ecos because...well...I'm not sure, lol. I know we ran out of the homemade. Maybe it seemed like too much to try and mix a big batch of soap and store it while we were building a house. But whatever the reason, I noticed I was having to add a lot of baking soda and vinegar to the mix to get the dirt and stank out. So I experimented and stopped adding the soap. I also learned from somewhere in the internet land to put the vinegar in the rinse cycle. The clothes ended up just as clean.
Now, we're here in Northern Michigan. I use a washer and dryer again (woohoo!), but I found that it wasn't as complimentary of system. Our clothes were clean, but they felt like they could do so much better! Plus the socks weren't getting that extra bit of TLC that they were used to from being hand washed, or was it being beaten on a rock until the water ran clean? lol
I recently had talked to my Dad about this in an off-hand conversation, and he said he was surprised it worked at all because the vinegar and baking soda cancelled each other out. I thought on that for a moment and realized how silly I had been. I should have waited to put the vinegar into the rinse cycle like I was doing with the James washer. He also said a little soap would help make the fabric "wetter" letting the grime out easier.
So, I thought on this for a bit, and decided to try something different.
Since I had experience with using Dr. Bronner's bar soap, I decided to give it a go again by grating it fine and mixing it into the baking soda. Then for kicks and giggles, I would try adding free and clear Oxyclean for stain removal.
This is the mix I came up with:
8 cups baking soda
1 bar lavender Dr. Bronner's
8 level 2 scoops of Oxyclean
I then used a 1/2 cup of the mix for each normal load.
The socks are now coming out magically clean, and the stain removal is really working! Just ask the Yeti about the white dish towel he used to clean coffee with! 😝
I have realized something as well. Just like most things in life, there are a million ways to do it! I almost titled this post "Homemade Laundry Detergent...yup another one" haha. It really only depends on how much money and time you want to invest. Also what your family needs as far as smell and stain tackling is concerned.
I encourage all of your to go out there and find your laundry groove! And also to watch out in a couple years from my next laundry detergent recipe...haha.
Thanks so much for visiting with me today. I hope all your laundry dreams come true!
Much love,
Stacie D
