Do you have a green recipe for household washing up liquid please?

Question

I can't find a green recipe for making household washing up liquid, I only want to use the simplest ingredients, any ideas or links please?

Answer 1

Hi!

The natural product, Soap-Nuts, which can be used to do laundry can also be used to make a totally natural washing up liquid.

Available from Eco outlets everywhere, we get our from the Eco Dojo here in Manchester UK.

Good wishes.

Answer 2

Hello Bella,

The slang in the UK & the U.S. is a wee different. Did you want a recipe for clothes laundry soap?

If so, this is mine:

Homemade Laundry Soap

1/3 bar Fels Naptha

½ cup Arm and Hammer washing soda

½ cup borax powder

~You will also need a small bucket, about 2 gallon size~

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan. Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts. Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket. Now add your soap mixture and stir. Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir. Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel. You use ½ cup per load.

A recipe for things like cleaning kitchen counters?

I use white vinegar and baking soda. Vinegar kills 95% of the germs. Bleach kills 99%. I do not use them together however. Vinegar is acid, baking soda a base, they would kind of cancel each other out. I use the baking soda with water first, and then wipe down the counters with vinegar.

I have not yet made up/found a satifactory soap for washing dishes. They all seem to leave a film on the dishes.

Copper pots? I cut a lemon in half and a lot of salt on a plate. Dip the lemon in the salt firmly, and go to town scrubbing. Keep dipping back into the salt. Really shines up the copper pots.

I make my own goats milk soaps.

I also buy the Dr. Bronner's soaps (mint in my favorite) by the gallon. Expensive stuff, but worth it. I dilute it with a natural Soft Soap I buy , by the gallon. One gallon of Dr. Bronner's soap will mix with 6 gallons of the natural soft soap I buy, in the end I get 7 gallons of soap total. This will last for several years here. I too farm and get quiet dirty, and it cleans my hands very well. My husband comes in very greasey/oily from doing mechanical things, and it works well for getting the oil/grease off. My customers who come to my farm to butcher LOVE the mint smell.

Every winter, I replenish the cedar chips (wood shavings) in my dog's doghouses. I take an old nylon stocking (pantyhose) and fill it with fresh cedar shavings. I pin the tubes of cedar shavings to the back of closets with a thumbtack so they are out of the way. Great smell in the closet, and keeps nasty moths away.

I also make lavendar sachets for dresser drawers, if my lavendar does well that year (some years I get almost nothing).

I spend the money for bees wax, for furniture polish. It's the best for the wood.

If you have a lovely natural fiber item (tablecloth/blouse) that has become stained so badly you cannot remove the stain, concider staining it somemore. I tea stain items (usually tablecloths). It gives them a very vintage look, and almost always blends the original stain away. (I've also used beet juice to dye leathers purple).

If you are cleaning glass (windows, or mirrors) newspapers, or coffee filters (unused) will not leave behind the bits of fuzz that paper towels do.

Here's a couple of links:
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Prairie/8088/clngrn.html

http://www.drbronner.com/index.html


A bit more information than you wanted, but hopefully all helpful.

~Garnet
Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 3

Vinegar and Bicarb of soda.