Saturday, February 23, 2008

Back to Basics - Washing Powder

Even before the diagnosis of ADHD for our son, we had started trying to reduce the amount of chemicals, preservatives, additives, colours in our diets, by carefully reading labels, totally eliminating some food items and making more homemade food etc.
In the course of doing this I read many interesting books which also offered advice on removing some of the nasty ingredients in other household products, not just food. The following is a recipe I came across for your own home made washing powder. I added some pure essential oils for fragrance and it's just lovely to use. It' also very economical too.

2 cups grated pure soap (I used sunlight pure soap - box of 4 bars cost $2.42 and 1 bar = 2 cups grated)
1 cup borax ($8 for 1kg, so this goes a long way)
1 cup washing soda crystals (found in supermarket cleaning products isle)
1 500gm box baking soda
Place all ingredients into a food processor and blend till it's a fine powder.
(I added my oils directly onto the washing soda crystals immediately before blending. In my first trial batch, I used Eucalyptus which was nice and fresh. The last batch I just made I used Bergamot, patchouli, lavender and Orange - Yumm)
It makes about an icecream container full and you only need a scant tablespoon per load of washing in top loaders (1 heaped tablespoon if clothes are very soiled, less for towels etc) and 1 teaspoon in front loaders. Give it a try.

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