Kayla asked me for soap recipes again so I thought I’d bump them up.

Handwashing Dish Soap

1 bar of Octagon soap – grated, melted into a gallon of water, DO NOT BOIL. Stir in 1 cup vinegar and 1/2 cup baking soda and 2 TB food grade glycerin. Pour into containers and cool. Seal after they cool. I’m hoping this will work as I want it to. I’m sure it will clean them and we can always run them through the dishwasher with a vinegar rinse if we need to. I paid .79 for the bar of soap.

Here is the recipe for Dish washer Detergent that I would use.

You have to scrape and pre-wash, sorry :0)

Mix the following and use 1 rounded

tablespoon per load:

1 – 55 ounce box of Arm & Hammer® Super Washing Soda  1 – 76 ounce box of 20 Mule Team® Borax  1 – 48 ounce box of coarse Kosher Salt  1 – 2 ounce container of food-grade Citric Acid — You can find this online or at your local brewery or specialty beer store. If you cannot find this you can substitute 10-15 lemon Kool-aid envelopes per batch **the small unsweetened ones**, if you use any other flavor you could easily color the inside of your dishwasher (you need 10-15 envelopes to equal the 1-2oz of straight citric acid.) If you do not use some form of citric acid… you will most likely have the cloudy residue left that most “green” cleaners leave.

#2 Dishwasher Detergent

1 cup Washing Soda 1 cup Borax optional: 2-3 drops essential oil Note on recipe: if you have problems with clowdy dishes, add 1/2 cup oxiclean powder to the mix and mix in some seventh generation powder (equal ratio) to the mix. for the pre-rinse, add one small drop of liquid detergent (hand wash detergent). Use vinegar for the rinse cycle. Dishes will sparkle!

My apologies that I can’t credit the two recipes above.

I’ve decided if we need an extra boost, we’ll simply use the hand washing dish soap recipe, wash the dishes, then rinse in the dishwasher with vinegar.

Laundry soap again:

• 2 cups Borax
• 2 cups Washing Soda
• 1 regular sized bar of soap (I used Fels Naptha, but ivory, Zote, Octagon or homemade bar soap will work) I times this by 4. We add essential oil for additional scent – lemon is real nice. We use 1/4 cup per load.

For fabric softner, I mix 2/3 cup of super cheap hair conditioner any brand, any scent you want, with 1 cup vinegar and 2 cups water. Shake well. In a sandwich sized container, place 6 cut up towel squares, cover with solution and put the lid on. Place 1 square in the dryer with your clothes. Dry as usual. Put the square back into the container, flip it over to re-wet it, refill as necessary.

I do make my own bar soap when I can, but this about covers what we use consistantly.