Homemade Cleaning Stuff...

The last few days, actually since Monday two of my kids have been sick. I am very lucky though because when my kids are sick, they sleep A LOT. Nice for them and me ;-) That meant school was out for the week. I found that pretty frustrating at first, but then quickly adapted and found a few interesting recipes to try. I have told you about making my own laundry detergent, well, I am still working on that and I am adjusting it to my needs. I did 6 loads of laundry and it worked just wonderful. The only thing I did with the whites is that I added half a cup baking powder. The laundry came out as clean as it does with commercial detergent. So I am very pleased with that. That will save a lot of money. 

I also looked around and found how to somewhat make my own softener, well, sorta anyway. I had an empty spray bottle and so I filled it with water and added some softener, I happened to have Downy, but I have heard that the cheaper brands actually work better for this. 

Fabric Softener/Fabric & Air Freshener


A  spray bottle

One part softener and five parts water, shake - done.

When I put my laundry in the dryer, I spray a couple squirts on the wet laundry and turn on the dryer. The laundry comes out nice and soft and good smelling. Though I think I will try something else when this is gone because I am trying to use as much natural stuff as possible and commercial softener is just pretty heavy on the chemicals. I have an idea but I am not sure if that works, so I will have to experiment a little first. Anyway, the watered down softener also works well instead of Fabreeze which is pretty spendy. I sprayed some sneakers, works great! 

Another really cool thing I tried was homemade dishwashing detergent. I had everything I needed from making laundry detergent and so I thought I give it a try.

Detergent for the dishwasher

1 cup of Borax
1 cup of Washing Soda
1/2 cup of Salt


White Vinegar


Mix the first three ingredients together in a tub, I used a yogurt tub.   Pour the vinegar in the compartment where you normally put the rinse aid. That is all ! I use 1 Tablespoon per load. I tried 2 tablespoons, but the result was not so good. So, you may want to start out with 1 tablespoon and adjust from there.


There is no vinegar smell, I save a ton of money and I am lightening the load a little bit on our environment. I did several loads now and the results a amazing. Everything is clean and spotless. 


I am in the process of trying some more things, I will post about those experiments later.