Homemade dishwasher & laundry soap from a newbie

[tranmama]

I'm very anxious to get the ball rolling with taking our family to the green level. I think I've got all the ingredients necessary for some great homemade cleansers, and I got the book Clean House, Clean Planet for my birthday, which I am utilizing.

Problem is, while the book does have some potentially great recipes, I'm still at a roadblock with dishwasher and laundry soap. The book doesn't really offer much for really and truly making your own effective recipes. Plus, I've found elsewhere that a popular concoction for dishwasher soap is 1 part Borax w/1 part Washing Soda. I've read many accounts where this method leaves dishes dingy, especially w/hard water, which we have. I've read that many people add vinegar to the rinse cycle for this problem, which some state it helps and others no. Further, I've read that vinegar is not good to put into the dishwasher. Could damage the machine or something.

I'm looking to you pros to help me make sense of all these products. We have hard water and a top-loading washer. I have invested in a big box of baking soda, washing soda and borax, plus I bought some Bac-Out today because I was so excited to see it on the supermarket shelf - soooo excited! Did I say I was excited? I found Bio-Kleen products, Dr. Bronner's and others. Oh that is something else I have...Dr. Bronner's Peppermint. I also have a gallon of vinegar and a small container of Oxyclean. Do I really need all these products? Can I utilize them in same or different ways? I understand that each item has it's place in different recipes for different cleaning purposes. Just struggling with homemade dishwasher and homemade laundry soap. How can I use the products I have purchased the most effectively? I really would like to make laundry soap I can wash everything in, from my gently-cycle undergarments to jeans to our 4-month-old's clothing, cloth diapers, covers & BGs.

[papschmitty]

When I was researching this a while back, I finally came to the conclusion that there aren't really any effective homemade concoctions for automatic dishwashers. I make most a lot of cleaning recipes myself a la Clean House, Clean Planet but I purchase nontoxic brands of dishwashing detergent and laundry soap. I'm still in search of the best dishwashing detergent. So far Ecover is doing OK but I wouldn't say that it's wonderful. I am, however, really impressed without our laundry soap. We use Charlies (the powder) and it works great. DH is a mechanic by profession and hobby so he can get to be quite a dirtball. Even his stuff comes out clean! I occasionally use borax as a laundry booster if stuff is really gross, like when DH left his soaking wet dirtbike clothing rotting in a tote in the garage for over a week. Gross!

[zicki]

:

Interested to hear about homemade automatic dishwasher detergents.

Nicki

[hottmama]

Are you making your own dishwasher soap to be environmentally friendly, or to save money? Because if you're trying to be environmentally friendly I think the best option would be handwashing with Dr. Bronners. We handwash our dishes with bulk dish soap so we don't use any packaging. I think there's bulk Dr. Bronner's too. We also use bulk liquid laundry detergent, although 1/2 baking soda 1/2 borax works okay, too.

[tranmama]

Originally Posted by hottmama

Are you making your own dishwasher soap to be environmentally friendly, or to save money? Because if you're trying to be environmentally friendly I think the best option would be handwashing with Dr. Bronners. We handwash our dishes with bulk dish soap so we don't use any packaging. I think there's bulk Dr. Bronner's too. We also use bulk liquid laundry detergent, although 1/2 baking soda 1/2 borax works okay, too.

My main reason is for environmental purposes, the money savings being a side-benefit. I'm already using 7th Generation dish soap for when I just have a few things to wash, and I wait until I have a full dishwasher load before running it (i.e. after a long day of cooking and eating and not doing the dishes as we go!). I like the 7th Generation dish soap quite a bit. I do have a small bottle of Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castile Soap, for trial when my non-greenies run out, which they haven't yet! I've decided not to touch it until the non-greenies are GONE! For our laundry soap, I've purchased a small box of Country Save to try after our Purex, Arm & Hammer Essentials & All F & C run out (which should be any day now). I can't wait!

How do I go about using Dr. Bronner's for dish soap? Do I need to dilute it since it's concentrated? I know these may be idiotic questions, but I'm clueless!

[snitker79]

I'm going to bump this thread because I'm looking to find an alternative to dishwasher detergent and laundry detergent.

I was looking at some threads about Sals Suds and it was mentioned that it can be used as dish detergent (probably too sudsy for dishwasher though) and laundry. Has anyone used this item in dishwasher or for laundry?

TIA

[BaBaBa]

I use baking soda and vinegar.

It doesn't get the dishes sparkling clean like the commercial products do but I'm okay with that. I think that advertising leads us to expect everything should be sparkling clean all the time which is a wonderful fantasy but not at the expense of my family's health or the environment.

So our dishes aren't the shiniest and sometimes they have spots but they're clean and have no toxic residues.

I have tried some eco brands but they only appear to work marginally better which isn't worth the money to me.

However, I do keep a nasty mainstream bottle hidden away and use it for holidays or big gatherings when you need to impress YKWIM?