A Recipe for Laundry

It's been 5 months since my laundry went detergent-free. YAY!! Before switching to the chemical-free laundry ball, I used to wash my laundry with liquid detergent that was free of perfumes and dyes. BUT, not free from a plastic bottle. :(


One of the main reasons that I made the switch in how I do my laundry is the packaging... especially with liquid detergent. So if you're wanting to make a change in what you use to wash your laundry and are a little hesitant about doing your laundry sans detergent...


Then you definitely need to say "Hello!" to my friend Joey... this is her fairytale ;)

"Once upon a time ago, I married the cheapest man in the world. No complaints! His cheapness allows me to be a Domestic Engineer staying home with our three children. It also has me constantly looking for ways to spend less money on the items we all need daily. Cleaning products and laundry soaps are something we all must use and when you purchase them you end up with their containers. The city in which we live has a recycling program, however, it's very limited. Before I began making my own cleaning products, I had numerous containers collected waiting to be driven to another city for recycling. After a while it became overwhelming. So many plastic bottles, so much waste! Finally, I had enough.

Enough of the spending, enough of the waste!

I asked my dad to bring me a bucket as he is the "King of Used Buckets." (I'm not sure what ours was previously used for, but we're using it now!!) When the bucket isn't being used for mopping floors, I make this:

Laundry Soap:
This recipe makes 5 gallons

Ingredients:
Hot Water (will total 5 gallons)
1/2 cup Washing Soda (can be found in the laundry aisle of any grocery store)
1/4 cup Borax
1 bar soap (if you buy bar soap in bulk--to keep it from drying out-- be sure to store in air tight container)
1 to 2 cup(s) Baking Soda (acts as a softener)
Fragrance oil, such as: lavender, linen, rosemary, tea tree, or any fragrance oil you desire! (optional)

• Grate bar of soap into a large sauce pan with hot water. Stir over medium heat until soap dissolves and melts completely.
• Fill 5 gallon pail half full of HOT water. Add melted soap, Borax & washing soda. Stir until all powder is dissolved.
• Top pail off with more hot water to a total of 5 gallons.
• Add 10-15 drops fragrance oil if you'd like!

To use:

• One cup* per load, stirring/shaking before each use. (*for standard washing machine)

For storing the laundry soap and homemade cleaners, we reuse gallon milk jugs** with "Mr. Yuck" stickers that the doctor's office gives out. Safety first!!

This is one of the websites I refer to when making homemade cleaners: http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/homemadehouseholdcleaners.htm

Remember just like any other recipe, you can adjust the ingredients to your liking!"

**If you're finishing up a bottle of liquid laundry detergent... save it and reuse it for homemade laundry detergent!

Oh yes, and if you haven't already... check out: Hangin' Out

A Journey from Disposable to Cloth Diapering

When I was in 7th grade, I remember my science teacher teaching a lesson that had to do with the amount of waste associated with different convenience products.  And while I don't remember specifics... I do remember her telling us how the amount of disposable diapers used in just one year could be stacked one on top of the other and stretch from the Earth to the moon and back again 9 times!!  I remember thinking, "I'll never use disposable diapers.  That's such a waste."  And when I had my first child, I remembered that science lesson... but my fears of being a new parent and listening to what other people told me about their experiences with disposable vs. reusable diapers took over and as much as I hate to say it... I used disposable diapers.  Ugh.  Now, I'm not usually the type of person to say that I wish I could turn back the hands of time... but when it comes to how I diapered my children...THAT... I wish I could change.

 SO... since I can't change what I did... I can only tell people how much I wish I would've done differently:  for the environment and for the money that we threw away to the landfill.  

SO... on that note... meet my sister-in-law Lindsay.  This is her story:

"When I became pregnant with my first child there were suddenly a lot of decisions to make.  Should we find out the sex of the baby or let it be a surprise?  Formula feed or breastfeed?  Pacifier or no pacifier?  A biggie for me was disposable diapers or cloth diapers?  The answers to most of these questions came surprisingly easy to me as I navigated my way through the early days of parenting.  Upon my husband's wish we knew we were having a girl, were committed to giving breastfeeding a determined try and did not use a pacifier.  Actually our daughter decided this last one herself...she prefers to suck two fingers of her right hand.  :)

As for the diapering question I thought about the things I had heard my mom say about cloth diapering my older brother and myself.  The folding, laundering, and safety pins not to mention the mess and smell.  I knew cloth diapering would be better for my baby's skin and the environment so I did some research online.  I decided a cloth diapering service was the way to go.  After all, we just used the diapers and they came weekly and picked up the soiled diapers and left a new batch for the coming week.  Kind of like trash service.  The way I saw it it was the best of both worlds...until I found out that there was only 1 company in all of St. Louis that does this service...and they didn't service my area as of yet and didn't know when they would be. :(  After this disappointment I pretty much resigned to the fact that we were going to be using disposable diapers after all and we received many packs of disposables at our showers.

For 11 months we used disposable diapers on our daughter and then one day in December I was looking through a parenting magazine when a cloth diapering system caught my eye.  I instantly went online to find out more about it and from there began researching all the different forms of cloth diapering that are out there.  Why didn't I do this over a year before when I was expecting you might ask?  Well, to be completely honest I'm not sure.  I think maybe I lacked the confidence that I could do it when I was only an expectant mother and already feeling the normal jitters of becoming a parent for the first time.  By the time my daughter was approaching her first birthday I had gone through the hazing that is the newborn period, first fever, teething, crawling and even walking and inevitably falling.  In essence, the task of cloth diapering wasn't as daunting as I thought and as I read about the cloth diapering systems out there I thought to myself, "why didn't anyone tell me they had cloth diapers like this nowadays?" and "hey I can do this!"

So with that mantra in the back of my mind, I located a wonderful cloth diapering store located only 10 miles from my house!  They offered a cloth diapering 101 class that would show the many different ways to cloth diaper your baby, let you get your hands on samples and asks as many questions as you have. While taking a class like this is unnecessary, it certainly helped boost my confidence.  The staff there takes phone calls and are very helpful.  One system gets you from birth to potty training for under $100!  Gone goes the myth that it is more expensive.  Did you know that on average it costs anywhere from $1600-$3000 to use disposable diapers from birth to potty training?  Cloth diapers pay for themselves within the first six months.  After that you only pay a minimal amount to launder them i.e. water, electric & detergent.  We found this expense to be so minimal we didn't even see an increase in our electric or water bills.  Plus we never have to make a midnight run to the store to get more diapers.  The worst thing that we might have to do is a load of laundry...and really when aren't you doing laundry anyway?

I bought a few second hand diapers that night so I could just "try it for a day" and see how I liked it.  Guess what?  I LOVED it!  It was every bit as easy as disposable diapers and my heart was finally content knowing that I was doing something that went along with my morals and views.  It just felt RIGHT.  The following day I bought a dozen brand new diapers off of Craigslist.  BumGenius 3.0 All-In-One diapers are very popular so it was easy to find someone who had gotten them as a gift and didn't want to use them.  This saved me $5 a diaper.  SCORE!  After a few months of cloth diapering I knew this was what I wanted to do from the very beginning with our next baby so I patiently perused Craigslist once again and within a few weeks found another dozen at a great price.  Double SCORE!  Now I have enough diapers for two days with a newborn (24-28) or three days with my toddler.  This has made laundering the diapers a synch.

As for the laundering...we use super soft liners to catch any poo and that gets flushed down the toilet so there's no poo in our diaper pail.  Every two or three days we do a cold wash cycle and then a hot wash cycle with an extra rinse.  As for drying them we often hang them over laundry baskets to dry over night or if we're in a hurry I dry the liners in the dryer.  The covers air dry very quickly on their own.  My favorite way to dry them however is outside on a clothes line.  I do this at least once a month because the sun acts as a natural bleach and restores the diapers and inserts to their pristine whiteness.  Plus they are deodorized by the air which is a scent that really you just can't bottle hard as some companies might try. :)

What could be cuter that a bunch of colorful diapers hanging from a clothesline?  

On that note, what could be cuter on your baby's bum than cloth diapers?  

All you need is some guidance and practice and the results and satisfaction in knowing you are giving your baby the very best will come."

Hangin' Out

A couple of weeks ago, I had a thought: Can I use my clothesline in the winter??

I posed the question to my Mom and husband, who said, "Why couldn't you??"

I don't know why I didn't think about it sooner... our winters (for the most part) are mild...

So... over the weekend I decided to hang my freshly washed (and detergent-free!) sheets out on the clothesline. The weather was cool with a nice breeze... mid-50's... hmmm... saying that I'm thinking that my family in Iowa would think that's a heatwave ;) Anyway, the sheets were dry in no time!! Sheets are by far my most favorite thing to hang out on the line... the feeling (and, of course, the scent) they get from blowing in the wind, can't possibly be replicated by the dryer. Usually one to procrastinate in making my bed, I actually made my bed right away... and was happy to do it. The sheets were crisp and cool... AND... I just couldn't get over the smell...ahhhh..... the scent of fresh air... seriously, companies try to bottle this scent... and people pay $$ for it!!

After the reminder of how great it is to use the clothesline...yesterday, I decided to keep it up. The weather was absolutely beautiful... low 60's with a nice breeze. It was hard to believe that only a week ago we had snow on the ground. Now, we had a Spring teaser... and I loved every second of it. Needless to say, it only made sense to hang out ALL of my laundry. By the time one load of laundry had dried on the line, another was ready

to be hung up. At the end of the day, I did four loads of laundry and had every bit folded an put away!

Besides the scent of fresh air on my laundry, I find that I'm more apt to fold laundry from the clothesline. Why? Well, with the dryer I pull everything out and put it in a basket to be carried to another room to be folded... which more often than not gets put off because something else has come up. BUT outside, as I take a clothespin off, I fold the laundry straight in

to the basket. I've often thought to myself, "Why don't I do this with clothes from the dryer?" Plain and simple, on the line... I hang the clothes up in order (of where they'll go), they're already laid out for me...no digging for matching anything... and let's be realistic... it's a lot nicer standing outside folding laundry than it is sitting in a laundry room:)

So... from this point forward, I'm making the commitment to use my clothesline as my main source for drying our clothes. The dryer will be used only when it's: freezing cold, too humid, or raining.

Wondering about what impact not using a dryer has?

BENEFITS for the Environment: Clothes dryers use an average of nearly 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually. When you consider that a typical household in the United States consumes a total of about 11,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year; your clothes dryer could be accounting for ten percent of your total electricity use! Not to mention the fact that the majority of the electricity in the United States is generated by burning fossil fuels. Obviously, the burning of fossil fuels is associated with many harmful environmental effects, such as global warming, air pollution, water and land pollution. BENEFITS for Your Wallet: Each year, it costs about $130 just to run a clothes dryer. Energy from the wind and sun... now that's FREE! BENEFITS for Your Clothes: The dryer can wear down the material of your clothes, especially undergarments, clothing with elastic, sweaters, and other delicates. Line-drying your clothes helps make your clothes last longer. Hmmm... longer lasting clothes? That saves resources too :)

Detergent-Free Laundry!!!

Back in December, a friend sent me something about magnets that clean your laundry and while I was completely baffled... I was also intrigued by the idea... AND...I SO wanted to believe in it.  I sent the info onto my husband who quickly told me "no way."  I pressed the subject...because I thought it would be SO amazing to not have to use laundry detergent... but he stood strong.  Then... as if by fate... I was reading the reusablebags blog, where the opening sentence was:

"When I told my husband we were considering adding a product to use instead of chemical-laden laundry detergent packaged in wasteful plastic containers he said, "This might be where I draw the line on your hippy environmental stuff." I laughed, but I understood where he was coming from."

I was immediately sucked in... I could hear all of the words coming out of my mouth.  It was "so" me.  I read the entire blog post and sent it onto my husband (and Mom).  I waited for a response from my husband... knowing full and well that he was going to tell me "no way" or laugh at me being SO naive.  BUT, much to my surprise, he came home at lunch and asked me when I was going to order the laundry stuff???!!!  I honestly thought that he was joking or testing me.  BUT... he said, "If it works then great, if it doesn't... you can send it back, right?"

So, on my last drops of detergent and fabric softener, I immediately placed my order through reusablebags.com for the chemical-free laundry ball and a set of dryer balls with a jar of fragrance sticks.  (I also ordered some other reusable products including new water bottle lids, and 3 oz airline approved tubes for my upcoming trip to LA.)  So... when my package arrived... I was so excited!!  I can honestly say that I really dislike doing laundry... with a family of five... it's never ending... but for the first time... I kid you not... I was so excited to get a load going!!

I waited... a little excited and nervous... for the first load to finish washing.  And when it did, I pulled out the wet clothes and smelled them.  AND... they smelled CLEAN!!  Of course, that's what I was hoping for... but I kept telling myself that it just might not.  Then after I dried the clothes, I smelled them again.  I just want to make sure that my desire to use less resources... isn't clouding my judgement ;) Needless to say, my nose has smelled A LOT of laundry these past 2 weeks!!  The good news is that after 2 weeks of using NO laundry detergent or fabric softener... everything smells SO clean (and static free)!!  Even though I totally wanted to believe in it... I'm honestly really amazed that it actually works!!  AND it lasts 700 washes!!  For real.

Obviously, I'm completely ecstatic about this for a number of reasons.  No products going into the water... no plastic bottles... no truck to deliver the plastic bottles filled with soaps to the store... no driving to the store to get more!!

So the other night, my Mom told me that she ordered her reusable laundry products!!!  And told me that she was going to get her neighbor to buy them too... create a "ripple" of her own!!  YAY!!