Making Cleaners

A couple of jars of orange peel had been sitting on my kitchen window ledge for a bit too long, and I was down to the last bit of laundry liquid, so thought it would be a good idea to restock on my cleaning products

The citrus cleaner I use is a ridiculously easy process.

So if I am making something that creates a lot of citrus peel, I just bung them in an old coffee jar, cover in vinegar and let them sit and look pretty until I am ready to strain them out –

Then I store the liquid in a clean coffee jar until I need to top up my spray bottle.  I use it as an all purpose cleaner – it smells nice and I don’t have to worry about odd chemicals when I am using it in the kitchen.

Vinegar is pretty cheap – you don’t need to use an expensive type, so the whole thing is fairly easy on the wallet (Esp since most surface spray cleaners are around the $5 mark)

Laundry Liquid

I am sure a lot of you who follow homesteading/frugal living blogs are aware of people who make their own laundry liquids or powders, or do so yourselves.

Soon after we moved here I was determined to get in touch with my Happy Hippy Self and try to wind back on the spending and chemicals & rah rah rah… I haven’t started tie-dyeing yet, but I am, little by little, moving away from pre-packaged stuff and being a little more self sufficient.

With just a tiny little bit more effort, you can save a bundle.

This is how I make my laundry liquid. The basic ingredients have lasted an eon. In fact – today I used the last of the Lux flakes, from the first box I bought over 4 years ago!!

I have had to replace the washing soda and borax once each.

I did a costing on it ages ago and worked out it was costing me less than $2 to make 10 litres!! A high end laundry liquid here can cost $10/litre. Dunno about any one else, but I am way keen to be spending that spare $98 on something more exciting than laundry liquid!

You need a bucket that has a bit over a 10 litre capacity & a bunch of bottles – preferably with handles.

1 cup Lux (soap) flakes

1/2 cup Lectric Soda (Washing soda)

1/2 cup Borax

Half grated bar Velvet soap (or a pure washing soap)

10 litres water

Optional oil for making it smell pretty (I love using Eucalyptus oil)

Put all your dry ingredients into a pot, along with a litre of the water and bring to boil

Let all ingredients melt and boil well (it will boil over if you don’t keep and eye on it!)

Pour into bucket and add the remaining 9 litres of water – keep stirring it up

Add your oil of choice

Pour into your bottles, leaving a good amount of ‘shake space’ as the mixture will separate after sitting for a while.

It works fine (I occasionally use normal stain remover – we do live on red dirt after all…) Just add a 1/4 cup to your wash. Its half an hour out of my life well spent. 🙂

Enjoy what’s left of your weekends!

Cheers