Making your own washing liquid is simple, cheap and possibly less of a skin irritant than the heavily scented shop bought varieties.
Here I make ten litres of washing liquid in a few minutes using just four ingredients, and one of those is water!
In a large bucket grate one bar of soap.
Add 2 litres of boiling water and stir until the soap has completely dissolved.
Add 400 grams of soda crystals (Cristaux de Soude, sold under the St. Marc brand in France) and 8 litres of tap hot water. (You can optionally add essential oils at this point, I used 30 drops of eucalyptus).
Stir very well and decant.
Once it has cooled it will solidify, so you'll need to scoop it out. Use 100ml per wash.
The cost is about a 20th of the price of shop bought liquid with the added benefit that you won't have to lug it home!
Do you make your own, do you have a different recipe, will you try this?
Funny you should mention it but yes, I made a bucketful yesterday, with a little essential lavendar oil. However you have to be quick with the 8 litres of hot water afterwards as mine went lumpy and I had to give it a whizz with the hand blender! I think it'll need more than 100ml per wash as well,being in a hardwater area, as some of the "stains" (orange juice for example) didn't come out.
OK, I have a confession. Any kind of vinegar smell or taste makes me feel queasy. We were advised to try it but I got a whiff and shuddered. Even adding lemon juice or other nice smelling things I could smell the vinegar. Despite what people say, white vinegar does smell.
With some of the things we tried we got clogging, maybe your problem too. If the dishwasher clogs, it is nasty white greasy stuff that is probably just accumulated ingredients. Cleaning out a dishwasher by using just water several times is so wasteful we just gave up.
Brian, I bought Ecover the other day in an attempt to clean up my glasses and cutlery and it works very well. I use white vinegar to rinse, and half a used lemon for a fresh smell. What annoys me is that my stuff worked well for several washes but not now!
Sarah, we tried all manner of mixes for dishwasher powder, but ended up buying eco tabs from a German company. I believe the Ecover ones are pretty good too but have never tried them. For the rinsing to work needs the right stuff, again we tried everything including putting surgical spirit in because alcohol usually brings glass up well. All to no available. It is really hard work trying to make dishwasher stuff that really works and with about a decade of trying I admit we are fair beaten :-(
The recipe I gave below is for dishwasher powder. It worked fine to start but now not so much, and some things like plastic boxes are left with a greasy film. Not all the glass cleans to a shine either. Some does, some doesn't. I'm wondering if I need to put in more of one of the products. But which?!
already bought the ingredients but haven't made mine yet as I was researching recipes... but for those who cannot find the soda crystals in the supermarket, your local Brico shop should store them, as that's where I found mine. I have saved the old laundry liquid containers so I can re-use. My own personal problem is allergies to certain chemicals or additives - I can easily find fabric softener for sensitive skin or 'hypoallergénique', but haven't succeeded with the detergent - perhaps I have to search further afield.
Nice one James. We have a new machine, arrived last week of November and using a recipe like Sarah's we have had good results. Apart from fluff our filter no longer has the nasty greasy build up that holds the lime in the water. Our bac degraisseur pipes have not blocked with build up from that greasy much and the bac itself smells less. We have found some eco dishwasher tabs and rinse in germany, it is expensive but OK. Salt is another question but we followed advice and add bicarb to that in good measure and that is coming out of the outlet clearer and we hope cleaner.
Since having Cancer a couple of years ago, I am very aware of not only the chemicals we use but how we also consume them in our water so I have been making my own washing 'powder' since then. I use:
1kg Borax substitute (usually available in hardware stores, on ebay or some supermarkets, possibly a DIY shop!)
1kg SODA crystals (usually available at the supermarket in a bag for about £1 uk the UK)
250g of baking/bicarbonate of soda
2 bars of 'natural' soap, grated. If you cannot find a natural chemical free soap, you can use the dove unscented or nivea unscented ones as they have very few chemicals added (I think the dove one is called Dove Sensitive).
I don't add essential oils because mine is powdered but if make it as a liquid like above, you can also add some chlorine free bleach for added stain removal performance.
using these homemade concoctions actually has less of a wearing effect on the fabrics too, so you should find your clothes look better and last better.
Thanks for this money-saving recipe, James. Could you please translate for non British readers? :-) Is this the equivalent of laundry soap (for clothes), or dish soap -- what you call "washing up liquid"? or can I take a shower with it?
