My washing au naturel

Helen
19 oct. 2017
3 min de lecture

I can still remember my first home made washing detergent - it was about 5 years ago and although I had toyed with the idea of making my own for a while to avoid chemicals in my wash, it was in fact the economical factor that made it a reality. I literally had enough money to buy food OR washing detergent - not both. Well there was no contest and as I had a few bars of soap in the cuboard , it seemed the natural course of things that I search the net to see what I could do to make my own liquid detergent. That very first bottle was very basic - I literally grated the bar of soap, melted it with boiling water, added sodium bicarbonate and a mix of tea tree oil (for it's disinfecting properties) and lemon essential oil (for it's purifying properties). As time has gone on, I've found many different recipes and methods to make your own liquid detergent but I have to say the Elixir d'Essences recipe and method works well for me. Personally I add the small amount of vinegar to my mix and that works to help softener my washing, so I don't bother with fabric softner in my machine, nor to I have a dryer, but I have researched and have a few extra recipes to share with you.

Very important too, is the maintenance of my machine, which I'd rather was without chemicals too. Once a month I remove and wash the drawer in a mix of white vinegar, lemon juice, washing up liquid and warm water. I then replace the drawer and do a machine at 60° with white vinegar (about a cup full) and nothing in the drum.

THE RECIPES

Liquid washing detergent (recipe Elixir d'Essences, tried and tested by myself)

You will need;

50g soap flakes (you can use either olive or vegetable oil soap flakes ( you can purchase both ready flaked via BIO et bien-être)

50g soda crystals

1 tablespoon sodium bicarbonate

25 drops of any mix of essential oil

1.2 l boiling water

1 tablespoon white vinegar (optional)

How to make your detergent;

Pour the boiling water of the soap flakes and sodium bicarbonate. Once the soap flakes have melt, add the soda crystals mixed with a small amount of waterand the vinegar if using. As the mixture cools add the essential oils.

The mix will gellify as it cools, the top tip from my collegues is to pass it through a mixer/blender before transfering to a bottle. Always shake before use.

THERE ARE PLENTY OF RECIPES FOR WASHING DETERGENT POWDER ON THE INTERNET - most call for washing soda (which I believe you can make literally just by baking baking powder in your oven) and /or borax. I have to admit I have never attempted any of these recipes, fault of sourcing the ingredients easily in France.

Fabric softener (this is a recipe that I had heard about on a facebook group, I have since heard adding sodium bicarbonate to the mix is even better)

Literally just add approx 8 drops of your favourite essential oil to a 1 litre bottle of white vinegar.

If you are going to add the sodium bcarbonate, , firstly I suggest mixing you softener in a large bowl , not directly in the bottle. Follow the above steps, then add approx 75g of sodium bicarbonate . To note that before adding the sodium bicarbonate, the essential oils sit on top of the vinegar . For some sort of magic reson, once the soduim bicarbonate has been added and dissolved, it mixes properly.

Pop the mixture into a properly labelled bottle and use approx 200ml in the softener compartement of your washing machine for each load.

Dryer sheets / balls (again to say that I do not own a tumble dryer, these are ideas from the internet)

Dryer balls - literally are balls that you add to your washing in the dryer and they will seperate your load, enabling the hot air to circulate more easily and evacuate the evaporate water from the machine quicker. You can also add essential oils to your balls to give an extra scent to your washing.