Now, my laundry is relegated to Mondays and I try hard to get it all done that day, although often it takes at least another day to complete. I no longer try to wash clothes by hand and I don't have a laundry line so everything that can goes into my dryer. But recently, I've run across a new "laundry experience" that I hadn't tried yet: making laundry detergent. I'd seen several recipes- even one that was peppermint but most of them required a castile soap (which didn't seem cost effective). I mean, unless you're highly allergic to all laundry detergents on the market, why would you take the time to make your own soap if it was going to cost you more and take more of your time? But then, my friend Ginny posted her own recipe with affordable ingredients and it didn't require boiling or anything terribly daunting. It was an opportune time, as I was about to run out of detergent again, so I decided to go for it!
Now, I'm not trying to go extreme here- I really feel like I've already been there done that. (I'm not planning on switching to cloth diapers either- I'll watch and observe my sister closely with that first, thank you!) But I feel like the time it takes me to make (in my case about a month's supply of) detergent (5 minutes) takes quite a bit less time than loading my two kids into the car, driving to the store and buying some. Okay, I did have to shop for the ingredients to begin with, but I've made it twice about 1.5x what her recipe calls for and I have enough for another 3 rounds- so I'm shopping for ingredients once every 5 months instead of once a month. And the savings is worth it... and after trying it for some time, I can say my clothes are clean (even though they no longer smell of all the perfumes that I might find in the other detergent I used to buy). So, try it out if you want, if not, enjoy some of my Friday Favorites from Etsy:
Oh yes, did I mention a giveaway? Here it is:
Three ways to enter:
1. Comment and tell me your nightmare laundry experience - Mine involves melted lipstick in the dryer... I wish it had only happened once, but alas! I'm a slow learner.
2. Follow me (or if you already do, that's good enough for me, too) and then comment telling me you do.
3. Share this giveaway post on facebook and then leave another comment letting me know you did so.
The contest will end next Wednesday, July 28! Good luck, and Happy Weekend!
2 comments:
I had no nightmare laundry experiences except when my daughter would leave her lipstick in her jeans pocket. ; )
Hmm, nightmare laundry would be when I washed and dried my favorite sweater that should have gone to the dry cleaner. It was the best sweater I've ever owned and now it would fit an 8 year-old best. Boo.
Thank you for finding this and doing the research, even after our discussion on this very topic I hadn't pursued anything myself. Now I'm off to the grocery for ingredients to make homemade detergents and raspberry sour cream pie, (soap for cleaning, pie for eating). :)
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