So in my last post, I blogged about making our own detergent & dryer "sheets." I'll add a picture tomorrow but I wanted to post the results. The detergent came out really well. It is very gelled and gloppy (is that a word? LOL) It's not pretty like store bought detergents, but I like it. I use the wide mouth funnel from my canning kit to help feed it into the liquid fabric softener bottle I'm reusing (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, right?!) In the directions, it said to fill half the bottle with the gelled detergent in the bucket and then fill with water and shake to mix. I actually prefer mine a little stronger, so I fill 2/3 of the bottle with the detergent and fill the last third with water and it works great! I love the smell of the detergent and it's VERY LOW sudsing. It took a little time to get used to not seeing a lot of bubbles in my washing machine water but I actually like it. The clothes come out smelling fresh and clean and seem to be getting clean. I haven't noticed any staining that wouldn't have come out with our store bought detergent or any dingyness or any other signs that it's not cleaning as well so I'm happy with it. Even better is that it works great with my cloth diapers as well!!! Normally I have to use a powder detergent that I mix myself and still rinse like crazy. This liquid detergent however is working great, getting the diapers clean, no ammonia odor in the mornings, and no buildup! All in fewer rinses than I was using before! SCORE! It's very cheap to make and I should be able to make several more gallon buckets full before I run out of the boxes of ingredients I've already purchased. I'm really looking forward to seeing how it performs in the long run. I'll probably invest in some other essential oils (lavendar?! ^_^) for my next batch. I liked having the Tea Tree Oil in this batch though. The dryer "sheets" are working great as well. I cut 3 sponges in half and keep them in the bucket with the softener mix. I have found that I prefer 2 sponges in each dryer load as it seems to work better. I love the lavendar fragrance! I used the Great Value brand lavendar liquid softener mixed with 3-4 bottles filled with water and mixed together in a 5 gal bucket. It's great!!!
Cleaning News:
Unfortunately, the past couple of months have been really rough on us. We've been sick a lot with one thing or another. We don't usually deal with so much sickness in an entire year, and definitely not in 1-2 months time! Over Christmas, I had the flu (type A). We've all had nearly constant sinus/ear infections off and on ever since it turned cool. The weather keeps changing back and forth from warm, to cool, to COLD and back again at the drop of a hat. It's been really rough! Then just last week, my two youngest ones got the flu! Thankfully, DH, ODD and I did not pick it up...which is amazing since my 2 youngest had flu type B. We've all had the cruddies though. Anyway, due to all the sickness lately, I've fallen behind on my cleaning challenge and haven't completed any more days. I'm hoping that if we continue getting better this week, I'll be able to get back into the swing of things next week. I have been doing fairly well with keeping the cleaned sections straightened and halfway clean however. I'm trying to keep the clutter put away, the floors swept and swiffered, and the "benches" (counters) cleaned off and wiped down. It's not perfect, but it's an improvement over my past habits of just letting it go completely!
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