DIY: Laundry Detergent

I am constantly brainstorming and re-thinking the way that I tackle my tasks as a stay-at-home momma. I am always on the lookout for new and creative ways to save time and money. I am willing to try just about anything once, much to my don't-fix-what-isn't-broken husband's dismay!

My latest project was making my own laundry detergent. It was quite simple, but a little on the time consuming side. I am willing to sacrifice the time for the amount of money we will be saving, though! I said on facebook that I did not want to share the recipe until I had tried it out on our clothes. Since Monday is my laundry day, I was able to try it out for the first time yesterday and am happy to report that it worked! Everything came out clean and smelling fresh. It even got the avocado stains out of a few of Julian's bibs :)

The ingredients on display

If you google "homemade laundry detergent", you will get lots of different recipes. I would venture to guess that about 99% of the recipes I consulted used all three of these ingredients, although some added other things as well. Since we deal with sensitive skin in our family, I wanted to keep this as simple as possible. I adapted this from several different recipes I found online to make it the perfect amount for our family of three. I ended up with about 64 ounces of powdered detergent. I will update when I make more so you can see how long 64 ounces of detergent lasted us!

Storms Family Laundry Detergent (Powder)

1 bar Fels Naptha soap

1 1/2 c. borax

2 1/2 c. super washing soda

Cut the bar of soap into four pieces and grate. Once grated, put soap flakes into a blender with a teeny tiny bit of hot water. Blend for about five minutes until the soap is super fine. Add the borax and pulse until mixed. Add the super washing soda and pulse until mixed. Pulse a few more times for good measure and pour into an airtight container. Use 1-2 tbs. per load of laundry. 

Note: Be sure to label this as laundry detergent. It is yellowish in color and could easily be mistaken for lemonade powder! Also, I would not recommend using this for cloth diapers. I use Planet to wash my cloth diapers and am too scared to try anything else now that I have a system down!

Julian: 7 months

Julian turned 7 months old on Monday. He is getting so BIG! We went to the doctor today to see the nurse for his second to last round of shots, so they did not do the full stats, but I was able to get him weighed. He weighed in at 16 lb. 13 oz.!

Seven months old

We officially started solid foods with him on Monday, as well. We are taking the baby-led weaning  approach to feeding him. Our mantra, as is the case with most baby-led weaning families, is "food before one is just for fun". The only traditional "rules" we are following is avoiding peanut butter and honey, especially since we eat raw honey, for at least the first year. I am still nursing Julian on demand, which comes out to be about 6 or 7 times in a 24 hour period. I am not at all concerned about how much (or, in this case, how little!) solid food he is actually eating. If he wants to eat what we put in front of him, he will! That being said, he has LOVED what we have given him so far. On Monday, he had sweet potato and roast at dinner. Tuesday he had a few chunks of banana at breakfast. Wednesday we gave him some ground beef and cucumber at dinner. I do wonder how much of it he is actually consuming, even though it doesn't really matter. I get my reassurance when I find little chunks of food in his dirty diapers :)

I will (and already do!) DEFINITELY miss the seven months of nothing but breast milk, particularly when it comes to his dirty diapers. They were much easier to clean up when he was EBF because I could throw the diaper, poop and all, into the wet bag and, subsequently, into the washing machine. Thankfully, my wonderful husband installed our diaper sprayer on Saturday. I know plenty of cloth diapering mommas who do it without a diaper sprayer, but this is one momma who is VERY thankful for the person that invented that contraption :)