experimentation

I wanted to give an update on my homemade detergents now that I’ve had some time to use them.

The laundry detergent is perfect. The smell is fantastic and the clothes come out smelling clean, not heavily perfumed. (Can you tell when people use Tide? I always can.) My skin hasn’t had any problems at all, neither has Honor’s. And the clothes come perfectly clean too.

The dish detergent, however, is still not perfect. The first few loads of dishes came clean, but now the glasses are cloudy and any remaining speck of food left on the dishes prior to loading remains there. So I tried adding a little vinegar to the rinse cycle. (Who wants to babysit their washer tho? It takes an hour for my dishes to get to the rinse cycle.) It helped, but it wasn’t enough. I started thinking about what makes the laundry detergent work and not the dish detergent: the lack of actual soap. So I’ve been squirting a little bit of regular dish soap (Method brand pink grapefruit, of course) into the soap cup. It seems to be working, but still needs further testing.

I’m also going to try corn starch. I read that it makes your glasses sparkly clean. Plus I’m hoping it will help with the major caking issue of the detergent. (Which is not so with the laundry soap.) I also might try Zote bar soap grated up in with the dish detergent as I heard that it is food safe, but this needs further research.

Anyway, I’ll get it figured out… I’m determined now! And just as soon as I do, I’ll post results.

Category: green 2 comments »

2 Responses to “experimentation”

  1. Allisone

    Zote is one of my all time favorite cupboard must haves. Dish soap, laundry, and house cleaning all without a plastic container. I’ve had great luck using it as a wool wash when a sweater gets smoke in it (with a touch of conditioner in the rinse), and as a spot remover. You can cut up the big bars into smaller chunks pretty easily by using a wire.
    I’ve only used it when hand washing dishes, so I am very interested in how this works out.

  2. Nichole D.

    I’ve been using the laundry soap, and I love it. Let me know about the dish detergent, I’d really like to try this!

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