Homemade Laundry Detergent

After posting this and linking to this, I dug through more comments and found a recipe for homemade dishwasher detergent.

If I can spend less money and still get clean dishes, I'm all about it!

1/3 cup Borax
1/3 cup Washing Soda (not baking soda)
1/3 cup salt
4 envelopes lemon kool-aid, unsweetened ( or citric acid)–each envelope only costs 8 cents
Using a funnel, add the above ingredients to a 32 oz plastic bottle with a lid (I use an old white vinegar bottle). Add just enough warm water to cover ingredients, cap and shake well. Mixture will foam–release lid to let Co2 escape. Add more water, shake. Continue until bottle is full. Mixture will smell like a lemon drop. Fill dispenser with the mix; shake before each use. I use white vinegar in my rinse aid dispenser.

*(all of the above was copied and pasted. I have yet to try any of this. I do know you can buy plain citric acid in many pharmacies).

Cinnamon Honey Butter

Saw this from one blog to the other... Here is where I first saw it posted.

"2 Sticks Softened Butter

1 Cup Powdered Sugar

1 Cup Honey

2 Teaspoons Ground Cinnamon

Using the whisk attachment in your mixer, blend all ingredients until it is smooth and has an even consistency. Occasionally scrape down the sides of the mixer with a rubber spatula to ensure even mixing. Scoop all of it into a Ziploc bag and pipe it into the small quilted Ball jars. You don't have to use the plastic bag but it helped me from getting it all over the place and seemed to make clean up a cinch."

Sounds VERY yummy!

Laundry Detergent

I've actually taken to making my own laundry detergent. Yada, yada, environmentally-safe. More importantly, it's CHEAP!

Found the recipe here and wanted to put it somewhere I could find it!

So... that link is currently broken (gone?) so here is the recipe as I remember it:

1 cup Borax
1 cup Arm and Hammer WASHING (not Baking) Soda
1 Bar Laundry Soap, grated (I use Fals-Neptha)
1/4 cup "laundry booster" (optional) (Oxi-Clean)

Some of my thoughts/ notes:

Go ahead and buy several bars of the Fals-Neptha soap. Drug Emporium is the only place I have found them. I make a triple batch every time I make it. Also, USE THE CUISINART to grate the soap. I did it the 'old fashioned way' one time. Awful and do not recommend that.

So far, I've made 7 batches of this, for a total of about $12. (Still have some Borax left, but the 'laundry booster' will only make it 7 batches). That is lasting me about half-again as long as a $18 box of Tide. It's a little bit of a mess to make, but worth it to me!