DIY No-Grate Powdered Laundry Soap

Like so many other people who are making their own cleaning supplies, I thought I would try it out myself. So, I found the preferred recipe for Laundry Detergent and went to work. The one thing that I ran across repeatedly was that no one liked grating the soap. So here is an alternative idea.

Recipe:

1 Box Borax (4lb 12oz) 

1 Box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (3lb 7oz)

1 Container OxiClean (3lbs)

2 Boxes Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (2lbs each)

3 Bars Fels Naptha Soap

Mix all ingredients together except the Fels-Naptha. You can either add the bars to the mixture by grating or microwave the bars using the directions below. If you are sensitive to strong smells, you had better just use the grating method.

Place Fels-Naptha Bar in microwave safe bowl like Corningware. Microwave on high for around 3 minutes (microwaves vary, so this is an estimated time). It will swell into a monstrous glob. When finished, carefully remove from microwave and set aside for a couple of hours to cool. After it is thoroughly cooled it easily crumbles and flakes apart in your hands. If it didn't cook quite long enough there will still be some hard chunks in the middle, you can just pop them back into the microwave for a few seconds until they plump up, then cool again and crumble.

You may end up with some unusual shapes like my Alien friend below:

 

* I cannot stress the cooling part enough because I did burn my fingers by being impatient. It cools very quickly on the outside but will maintain hot pockets of goo inside for a long time.

* The scent will not be unpleasant but will be very strong and quite overwhelming, your microwave may retain the smell for quite awhile.

This is definitely the best and easiest method for me but please do not try it if you or a family member cannot tolerate strong odors. Your whole house will smell like Fels-Naptha!!

Goat Milk Lotion

Yes, I know that I didn't blog yesterday but I had already started this one when the storms came through and I had to shut off my computer. Then we lost our electricity, so I never finished it or got it posted. The following is yesterday's blog.

I have a lot of goat's milk in my freezer that I need to get rid of before my goats come fresh again. So I have decided to make lotion, cleanser and soap. I started my new adventure today.

I purchased most of the ingredients that I needed from that great Chinese distributor, Walmart, except for the Beeswax and Goat's Milk. I bought a Stick Blender that was made in China, they only had one choice available, so it got pitched in the old cart pretty quickly without much thought. They had Coconut Oil that is a dietary supplement that was actually manufactured in Florida. They had Spring Valley Vitamin E Oil for the skin that was manufactured in California. They also had some Aloe Vera Gel that wasn't exactly what my recipe called for because it wasn't 100% Aloe Vera, it was an Aloe Vera Gel for sunburn, but I didn't think it would hurt anything because it is for the skin and it was manufactured in Florida.

Here is the recipe:

1/8 tsp. borax
1/4 cup cold goat's milk
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 Tbsp. beeswax
1/2 cup Aloe Vera gel
1 tsp. Vitamin E oil

Heat borax and milk in microwave to boiling. Melt coconut oil and beeswax together in microwave but remove when oil gets hot and beeswax is not completely melted, the hot oil will melt the beeswax with a little time and stirring. Slowly add this to the borax/milk mixture using a stick blender. Add Vitamin E oil and cool to room temperature. Next add Aloe Vera to the cooled lotion and blend one final time.

I had to buy the beeswax on eBay.

We found this recipe to be way too greasy, but it may be because I used the wrong type of Aloe Vera Gel. This would make a great massage oil though.

I plan to order some pure Aloe Vera and try this recipe again because it is so easy. The hardest part was shaving the beeswax