Home Laundry Detergent~ UPDATED with notes!

I updated my Homemade Laundry Detergent Post from lat summer.

New notes and photos!

This recipe is cheap, works really well and uses all natural ingredients!

It takes a small amount of time to make and I now store it in the pot I cook it in, 

so no messy transfer time.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE DETAILED POST

Have a great day!

xo

reenie

Peanut Butter Granola~ Reenie's Recipe

 Here it is... my super, fantastic, deliciously yummarific peanut butter granola recipe!

It goes great on ice cream, yogurt, in milk, or just out of the jar!

Use organic ingredients as much as you can, everything I used was organic but the peanut butter.

Wet Ingredients:
~ 1 cup all natural peanut butter. (The kind with NO sugar or high fructose corn syrup added.)
~ 3/4 cup maple syrup
~ 1/2 cup unsulphured molasses

Dry Ingredients:
~ 5 cups rolled oats
~ 1/2 cup bran or ground flax
~ 1 cup peanuts
~ 1 cup raisins or other dried fruit (optional)... (dried cherries give it a PB&J vibe).
~ 1 cup sliced almonds
~ 1/2 tsp salt
~ 1 TB cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
~ Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
~ Mix all of your dry ingredients in a large bowl.
~ Mix all of your wet ingredients in a saucepan. Heat until mixed well.
~ Pour wet over dry and stir until everything is well coated.
~ Bake in the oven for 10 min or more, depending on how crunchy you want your granola. I do mine for 10 min. and when I take it out, it seems too soft, but it hardens up when it cools.
I add any raisins or dried fruits after I bake it, so they don't get hard in the oven.
You can also play with the maple syrup amount, make it more or less sweet to your taste.

My kids go crazy for this. Enjoy!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I have been obsessing about several things lately, one is cutting our everyday costs. So many"natural" products are beyond pricey. It gets ridiculous really.... so I started with the things that I use every day. Like laundry detergent.

I found this recipe on the Why Not Sew? blog... (click for link)
It uses very few ingredients and took very little time to make.
I did not take photos of the process, since WhyNotSew did such a spectacular job of it.

My notes are in hot pink~
Ingredients:
1 bar soap (Kirk's CocoCastile or any soap of your choice) (I now use liquid Dr. Bronner's Castile soap, 1/2 cup per batch)
1 cup Borax
1 cup Arm & Hammer washing soda (not baking soda)
a big pot (that will hold more than 2 gallons)
a grater (for bar soap~ I use my food processor)
a long spoon
a bucket to store detergent in (I use an old enamel soup pot... make the detergent in it then store it on top of your dryer. This eliminates the messy transfer from pot to bucket step.)

The Process:
1. Grate the bar of soap. (I used my food processor because I am impatient... it took 30 seconds to grate and the soap rinses off easily) If you are using the liquid soap you can skip this step, obviously.

2. Add 1 gallon hot water to the pot and add the grated (or liquid) soap. Heat until soap has dissolved.

3. Add the Borax and the Washing soda.

4. Bring to a boil. It will coagulate, more if you are using bar soap, less if using a liquid soap.  It will also cook over really fast and make a huge mess. Beware.

5. Turn off the heat. Add 1 gallon of cold water. Stir. 

6. Let it sit until it cools. If it hasn't coagulated yet, no worries. It will. (When you use the liquid Dr. Bronner's Castile, the detergent stays looser, it does not solidify (gel) up as much. This works perfectly for me and my top loader as I was having trouble with the large gelli chunks getting gunked up in the dispenser).

7. Once it is cool transfer it to the bucket. 
As I mentioned above, I store my detergent right in the pot I cook it in.

I use a 1/2 cup and put it in my front loader dispenser into the powder dispenser. 

Previously I used the Ecos brand laundry detergent from Costco, which costs around $12 for a 210 oz. jug. 
I used 1/3 cup per load, which came to 30 cents per load!
(I have no idea where they get their calculation on the HE amounts! The Ecos bottle says you can get 100 some loads??!!, but that did not work at all for me. Maybe if you washed 3 towels per load, haha).

After breaking down the math on this recipe, a 1/2 cup per load comes to 
4 cents a load! 1/3 cup comes to 2.6 cents!!

So, on average we do 2-3 loads a day. 

The Ecos brand cost comes to 60-90 cents a day, $18-$27 a month and $216- $324 a year.

This recipe costs 8-12 cents a day, $2.40- $3.60 a month and $28.80- $43.20 a year.

BIG SAVINGS, and more than enough to make it worth the time to cook this up.

I have been using this recipe for about 3 weeks now, and so far have noticed NO difference in the cleanliness of the laundry. (update... for 9 months now! It is really easy to make and I have no plans to go back to store bought detergent)

My clothing no longer has a faint old lady perfumy smell and the Borax makes the whites brighter (I do not use bleach in my l laundry, it is bad for the septic). The Dr. Bronner Castile soap comes in some yummy scents. My favorite is Tea Tree Oil.

I use white vinegar for the fabric softener and if it is a stinky load I put vinegar in the bleach dispenser also with a cup of baking soda inside the washer.

The bleach dispenser goes into the wash load, the fabric softener goes into the rinse.

The baking soda also keeps my front loader from smelling mildewy, something I reallllllyyyy noticed after getting a front loader. It does not seem to empty the water competely out after a load, and here in the PNW it is always a bit damp. Even leaving the door open when not in use did not help. The baking soda/vinegar in an occasional wash load did take them mildew smell away.

SO there you have it.... riveting info from Reenie. ;)
What every day household products do YOU make from scratch?
Please share in the comments~