Adventures with the Ahrens's : The blog in which I re-post my homemade laundry detergent recipe.

HOME MADE LAUNDRY DETERGENT

The following is a partial re-post of my blog on my attempt at home made laundry detergent that I swear you people think I am selling each time I talk about it. I will tell you one thing- I have been using it for about a month and a half, and L.O.V.E. it. I am seriously giving it as Christmas gifts this year since we are struggling this year, and think that others might appreciate the savings tip with a sample. This is a totally dry mixture. No cooking, baking or liquefying. It stores in a free container I asked for from the local grocery store bakery, with a lid, in the garage. The Purex container is where I store and pour from for our everyday washes, and it took a month and a half of a load a day to go through the container before I had to refill it. Without further ado....

I found the directions on Pinterest.com, however, I found that there was only one of the multitudes that I thought I would really like. I tweaked the "recipe" slightly. I am including lots of pictures, and hope that the recipe makes sense. Essentially, I ran to the Publix bakery and asked for a frosting tub, and they gave me one with a nice lid. Free. Then, I went to Kroger, and with tax, spent under $30 for a years' worth of laundry detergent. The kids and I worked on it outside, in between their trampoline turn taking. You use between one and two TABLESPOONS of the mixture, and the way I did it, the top of my container will measure it out for me. Pictures will make sense on this.

Here's where things get fun. Tonight, I made something I haven't made in years. I made fried wings. I haven't friend anything in years for that fact. However, I learned (on Pinterest- shocker, right?) that the way to get them to be crispy, is to leave the top off the pot and to dry the chicken completely before frying it. We don't buy paper towels, so I opted to use a kitchen hand towel that I didn't mind throwing away if I had too. However, I had half a load of laundry in the washer, and thought, well, I guess this would be as good a test as ever to see if it really works. So, I threw this hand towel with some chicken blood and stank on it, and started the wash. And yes, Rachel, there is no doubt. It is clean. (That was the question she had, and my thought was, how can I expect all those ingredients to do anything but clean?) Geoff loves the smell, and the hardest part was grating the three bars of soap, taking about 15 minutes. Then, I had to don the gloves and hand mix the batch since the mixing spoon was not doing a good enough job. If I had layered the ingredients as the pinner suggested, it might have worked better. I filled the Purex container with the mixture, then put a lid on the remainder in the tub I mixed it in. (I see holiday time gifts in the near future with the printed directions. Hint, hint. Act surprised!)

PS The blog I read said it does great in high efficiency washers (HE) and note that it does not suds, but it cleans like yo' momma'! But those darn push tabs nearly sent me off the cliff. I swear, my eye started twitching and I prayed that I would maintain my gate keeper at my mouth so that I might not spit out a four letter word. My gate keeper is in rehab right now receiving shock therapy. The pictures are way out of order. It's late. Sorry.