HOMEMADE NATURAL LAUNDRY WASHING POWDER

Yes, yes, yes, I did it…finally got it right 🙂

My fabrics are clean and smell awesome. Yay! More importantly the powder is safe and free of dangerous chemicals!
The recipe below is homemade and all natural and it’s definitely been worth the wait.
After months of trying I have found the perfect laundry detergent recipe and I am so happy to share it with You!
Upon discovering how dangerous the advertised store bought washing powders and liquids actually are, with their harsh chemical ingredients that are ridiculously hard to pronounce, I got really upset at the thought of what I was allowing next to my children’s skin and decided enough was enough. How cool is the notion of home-crafting your own anyway? Very cool and really very satisfying knowing you know exactly what’s being used and the fact that it works just rocks! Ok so the store bought brands have a high potency of fragrance and are really really really cheap but they are not natural and far from eco-friendly, in my eyes it’s just not worth it, that is my babies skin I am putting those deadly chemicals on. The system over time has lured us in to just buy whatever is mainstream and has some how numbed our minds to not even question what we are buying even though the list of oddly named ingredients is plain to see, people just do not seem to care, playing ignorance and some people really are that stupid to not even think twice, only caring about price. Not this Muma.

If we think about the impact we are having on earth and the water supply by flooding it with these poisons then we are able to see how we are carelessly destroying the only place we have to live, our true source of life. Do we want to live on a totally poisoned world? That is the way it is heading unless more people wake up, quick. Eventually we will have corrupted our Mother Earth so much we won’t have grass to stand on.
One by one we can stop this mass destruction and try to create a natural clean and green world. It may take a while but why would we want to pollute our planet when we really do not need to. Eco-warriors need to lead the way by example, reaching out to others and through guidance, helping everyone to understand the damage we are actually doing and how easy it is to make these changes. You don’t need to be a wacky scientist or have a state of the art laboratory (that would be nice though), just a few natural ingredients, a grater, a spoon, a cup and a tub!

To have the pleasure and satisfaction of making your very own washing powder you will require:

Ingredients:

1 cup Organic Lavender & Chamomile Essential Oils infused Soap Bar
1 cup High Grade Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda)
1 cup High Grade Sodium Carbonate (Washing Soda)
1 cup High Grade Citric Acid
1 cup High Grade Dead Sea Salt
½ cup Organic White Wine Vinegar

Once you have acquired all the ingredients you will require:

The method:

1) Acquire a cup for measuring, a cheese or soap grater, a bowl to mix it together in or an airtight tub to mix / store it in and turn on the washing machine
2) Simply grate a bar of soap to fill your cup using the grater
3) Measure out the Sodium Bicarb, Sodium Carbonate, Citric Acid and Sea Salt into equal parts to each other and to the soap (1 cup)
4) Combine these all together in the bowl / tub and mix very thoroughly being very careful not to gust the powders up your nose or you will sneeze (every time!)
5) Use 1 cup of finished mixture to add to the laundry in the machine
6) Add the additional ½ – 1 cup of white wine vinegar to further freshen and soften
7) Set the machine and move on to your next job!

Tips:

– You can make your own Sodium Carbonate from Sodium Bicarbonate by popping it in the oven for 30 minutes and baking it at around 200 Celsius. You must mix it regularly whilst its baking or it will harden and although the lumps can be broken down its better to keep it as fine as possible so it will mix well in this recipe once it has cooled. Alternatively you can buy it ready-made (purchase at great prices from Intralabs.co,uk).
– I recommend using a richly infused with essential oils soap bar. You can use a plain base soap and then add oils afterwards although using a scented bar helps the oils to be distributed evenly through the mixture. Adding oils to the mix afterwards makes it difficult to ensure you get the oil in each dose you add to the fabrics as it clumps up and may only reach one load leaving all the other loads scent free (not good!) + it requires a lot of drops
– When grating the soap I used a grade size that would give me a larger consistency of shavings (there is just something I like about the idea of large slithers of soap knocking into my fabrics). Next time I will attempt a smaller grade so the soap is distributed more.
-The soap tends to ‘run off’ together in the tub and separate from the powders so it is essential you stir thoroughly before using the mixture each time to gain maximum even distribution.
– Before I was stupidly using borax as a main ingredient from a recipe of unreliable source, cross reference is very important. I DO NOT recommend using borax. Just because it’s natural it does not mean it’s good for you! Borax is a major irritant to skin, it causes nappy rash and it can choke you up in an instant if you use it without a mask. I would recommend you keep it away from contact with skin. It is great for abrasive cleaning though i.e. the toilet or the sink!
– Don’t be under the impression that the vinegar will hold its potency through the wash taking over the scent of the oils. This is not the case; you cannot smell it at all in the final product. It is added for softness!

I’m so glad I can finally post this article, seriously so happy to have done this. Bring on the Lab! I hope you enjoy this recipe, good luck and thanks for reading my posts 🙂