Busy, Busy

We have been busy, busy here at the Heald house for the past couple weeks. Jared's been crazy with something at work. He didn't see daylight for a couple days. I don't know how he does it. Matney and I have crossed item after item off our to do list and I finally feel really good about what all we got done. I call it "hormonal nesting meets obsessive spring cleaning". Be glad you haven't been handed one of my to do lists!
One of the things I did was to make my own laundry detergent...again. Remember, I tried this when M was little and I never found a "recipe" that I liked. This time a woman I know passed this along and said it works great for her family. We spend so much money on laundry detergent and I know that number will only go up as the girls get bigger. Plus, I would like to "go green" whereever we can and the green detergents sold at the store totally not in the budget! I've tried it now for a week and am pleased with how it works. This one probably will be a keeper so I thought I'd pass the info along in case anyone else is interested. Total cost and time at the end.

You'll need one 5 gallon bucket, 1 cup Borax, 1 cup Washing Soda (not baking soda...sold on the same row as other detergents), 1 bar of any soap you want (I used Ivory so that there was no smell or dye for Halle) and then it is optional to use an essential oil for fragrance. I have grapefruit seed extract from making wipes for M and put a few drops of that in.


Grate your bar of soap. My cheese grater has never been so clean. Add the soap to 4 cups of boiling water, a little at a time, until melted. If you want to add any oils put a couple drops in at this time.

When the soap is disolved add approx. 4 gallons of warm water to the bucket. Add your 1 cup washing soda and 1 cup borax stirring until disolved. When that is done stir in your soap mixture.

This is what it looks like. Leave the lid (if you have one) cracked to let the steam out and let it sit for 24 hours. It will turn into a gel and you use 3/4cup per load.
My ingredient total, plus the bucket, was less than $10 and I have enough to make about 5 more buckets. The lady that gave me the recipe had it all calculated out and I don't have that number with me but it is WAY CHEAPER than what we bought at Costco before. I timed how long it took to make. Start to finish with clean up was less than 20 minutes. Matney played with a bowl and other fun "kitchen toys" in the living room while I worked. Easy! Hope someone can use this. Let me know if you try it!!!