Keeping it Clean

I made my own dishwasher powder, liquid dish soap and laundry powder this morning.  I took the advice of a couple of friends, Cindy Wagner and Michael Nolan , and mixed up the concoctions.

The first thing I did was explode half a bar of Zote soap in the microwave.  This was very fun and much easier than shredding it.  Next time I will cut it into several smaller pieces to speed up the process. 

The dishwasher powder was 1 cup borax, 1 cup baking soda, 1/4 cup washing soda and a few drops of orange oil shook up together in a Mason jar. There is no actual soap in this recipe.  Worked great on my first load of dishes.  I do put white vinegar in the rinse aid dispenser in the dishwasher door.  This keeps the glasses and such from looking cloudy.  Love some sparkly wine glasses :)

The liquid dish soap was about a cup of exploded Zote soap 1/2 cup of borax and a tablespoon or so of washing soda dissolved in boiling water.  Next time, I am going to make it a little thicker.  It worked great, but  I am going to get used to the lack of suds.

The laundry powder was the rest of that bar of exploded soap, 2 cups of borax and 1/2 cup of washing soda all mixed up with a blender.  I put a little vinegar in the fabric softener dispenser.  The laundry came out nice and clean.  

What kind of earth friendly cleaners do you like?

Happy Earth Day