Easy Laundry Soap

My month long challenge of slowly ridding our house of nasty chemicals began several weeks ago. My first item to replace was my face lotion. I created a Recipe for Facial Moisturizer  and secondly, I wanted to replace my dishwasher detergent DIY Organic Dishwasher Detergent. This last week, I shared a replacement for face wash with my Cheap, Organic Face Wash recipe.

I am concocting my own household replacements with little more than what I have on hand or what I can find at the organic market.

But the replacements must meet or exceed three important expectations for this frugal gal:
1. It must be easy to replace-no beakers or science lab experiments. Thank you.
2. It must be just as good or better than the current product I’m using and,
3. It must cost the same or less than the current product I’m using.

photo source unknown

If the product I create passes the final test-me using it for over two plus weeks to make sure it does its job-then I’ll be sharing it with you. I will break down the cost for you, provide you the recipe and give you my honest opinion of the final product.

I’ve seen a million recipes for laundry soap floating around the world wide web (as my mother calls it). I wanted to try one on my own, tweak it a little, test it out and compare it to what I’m already using. I also hadn’t seen an easy way to grate the soap, so I got a little crazy with my Oster blender.

I hope you enjoy my Easy Laundry Soap recipe.

With three ingredients, your store bought laundry soap can easily be replaced with a homemade version that will cost you only $.05 per load. And, you can store it in a cute jar with your own hand-written label. I think that’s pretty much a win-win.

What you’ll need to make your very own Easy Laundry Soap (this makes approx. 48 loads):

1 Bar (5.5 oz approx.) Fels-Naptha, Zote Soap or Ivory Soap
2 C Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (make sure it says “Super Washing Soda”)
2 C Borax
Blender/Food Processor

Cut the soap into manageable pieces for the food processor/blender. Use the finest chopping blade available, making the pieces as small as possible.

Add the 2 Cups of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda to the grated Zote or Ivory Soap.

Next, dump in the 2 Cups of Borax. Mix everything as much as possible with a wooden spoon.

If the pieces are large, transfer a cup at a time of the mixture back into a blender. Blend thoroughly. I have settled on using Fels-Naptha soap, which grinds down to small pieces the first time around. So, I no longer need to do this step.

The mixture should look like this when everything has been blended thoroughly.

Transfer the mixture into a cute jar or container. Add a label (I always print the recipe on the label to make it easier for refills when the time comes).

Use 1/8 Cup of the mixture for normal loads and 1/4 Cup for heavily soiled clothes.

Here’s the financial breakdown of what this recipe will make per 48 loads:

Borax $3.38 for 76 oz= 9.5 Cups
A & H $3.00 for 55 oz= 6.8 Cups
Soap $1 per 48 loads

Per 48 Loads
Borax=$.67
A & H=$.90
Soap=$1

Total=$2.57/48 loads= $.05 per load

Garden & Landscaping Preparations

It’s almost time to begin sowing those seeds, ladies! Weeks before the planting season, I request my favorite seed catalogue from “Gurney’s” and pore over it as some women do shoe advertisements.

Visions of green beans, spinach and tomatoes are dancing in my head.

I even make an excel spreadsheet of what I hope to buy, determine the planting date, harvest date and if it’s better to buy the full plant or the seeds.
It gets pretty technical, but I love a good excel spreadsheet-reminds me of my accounting days….awe…

I narrow down my needs vs. wants using a system of highlighting, page marking and price comparison shopping. Tomatoes are the most difficult thing for me to narrow down. I could plant every variety that Oklahoma allows and still not have enough.

The tabs at the top are rearranged and my poor Biceps has to hear about the latest string bean that sounds interesting over and over.

This year, I’m going to plant a cover crop. I thought I would use a winter rye-but have decided to go with a clover. A cover crop is helpful to prevent erosion over the winter/spring season and also provides green manure for next year’s garden.

Also, this year we are going to finally landscape the naked front of our house. I would love to have an almond tree, several types of grasses, lavender, and two large oak trees out front.

It would look something like this if a second grader got ahold of markers and my computer screen.
Now, to just get Biceps on board with all of this. I think a romantic dinner, a massage and a discussion of seedlings, plants and trees are in his future….

Cheap, Organic Face Wash

My month long challenge of slowly ridding our house of nasty chemicals began several weeks ago. Two weeks ago, I shared my Recipe for Facial Moisturizer  and last week-my DIY Organic Dishwasher Detergent.

I am concocting my own household replacements with little more than what I have on hand or what I can find at the organic market.

But the replacements must meet or exceed three important expectations for this frugal gal:
1. It must be easy to replace-no beakers or science lab experiments. Thank you.
2. It must be just as good or better than the current product I’m using and,
3. It must cost the same or less than the current product I’m using.

photo source unknown

If the product I create passes the final test-me using it for over two plus week to make sure it does its job-then I’ll be sharing it with you. I will break down the cost for you, provide you the recipe and give you my honest opinion of the final product.

Without further ado: here is Phase 3 of ridding my house of chemicals-Cheap, Organic Face Wash made from nothing other than oatmeal.

First things first-this ‘recipe’ is simple-so simple in fact, that it shouldn’t be called a ‘recipe’. Oatmeal naturally exfoliates the skin, reduces redness, fades out sun spots and leaves the skin feeling supple.

Here’s all that you’ll need for your Cheap, Organic Face Wash:

Coffee grinder or blender
Old Fashioned Oats (not the quick oats)
Jar

Grind about 1-2 cups of oatmeal in the coffee grinder/blender until it has become very fine.

There will still be a few chunky oats here and there, but for the most part it should be almost flour-like.

Throw the oats in a jar and label it with a cute label.

To use the Face Wash, grab a handful of the ground oats while standing over a sink.

Add a bit of water to the oats, until it feels more like a dry dough.

Humble yourself and take pictures as you apply the mixture to a dry face.

Rinse off with warm water. Take more humbling pictures of your crazy hair, sans make-up self that you share with the world.

This face wash costs approximately $.01 or less per usage. And I’ve noticed my sun spots fading. That’s stinking awesome.

Linking to this party, amongst others (here’s my full page of parties I link to): Today’s Creative Blog

A Second Car Fight

Biceps and I are realizing quickly that not touring means being at home. Duh. What we are also realizing is that when he needs to go somewhere for work-I can’t always go with him. They sort of frown upon firefighters bringing their wives along-I don’t know why.

That leads me to this point: we think we need a second car. I know-it’s decadent, provocative and immensely American of us. But, this frugal household might just spring for “Four more wheels! Four more wheels! Four more wheels!”.

This is what Biceps wants-not because it’s necessarily cool, but very practical:

B-O-R-I-N-G.

A Prius. I think Rory Gilmore drove a Prius. I think that kid sitting across from me at the coffee shop that smells like Patchouli drives a Prius with his soul patch riding shotgun next to his caramel-no whip-soy latte.

Practical?-Yes. Good gas mileage?-Yes. Boring?-Yes.

This is what I want-a 1964 1/2 Mustang.

I don’t care if it’s candy apple red, avocado green or midnight blue-as long as it’s original. With white Pony Leather interior, 289 D-Code 4v Engine, Automatic Transmission, and factory air-what more could a girl want?

(I hear you in the background saying, “Electric windows/locks, seat heaters, a faab, airbags, murmur, murmur”. Don’t think I don’t.)

When I was 14, I saved up and bought this car-a 1966 Ford Mustang. It was a complete lemon-everything fell apart on it-the transmission, the horn, the brakes. But it was mine, and I loved it.

I would even give up the Mustang to drive a more practical vehicle like this-a 1963 Wagoneer. This gets about 9 mpg’s, so we wouldn’t really drive it-just look at it.

Or this-a 1978 Mercedes wagon. It gets better gas mileage (19 mpg) and it’s still pretty cute.

But really, what we need as a family is something classic, something practical and very affordable. With its 19 mpg’s on the highway-it’s downright economical. And let’s not forget that I’m recycling an old car instead of demanding a new one. And, I’m keeping local small businesses open with my never-ending need for repair parts.

This is just downright embarrassing-with its automatic locks, airbags, great gas mileage and resale value-only a goofball would buy this. Seriously, what am I going to do with Biceps?