Thursday, July 19, 2012

Dish soap

My husband said the magic words today.

"We've run out of dishwashing soap."

I have been so busy that I had forgotten that I wanted to make dishwashing soap.  Over the past couple of weeks I have ordered ingredients from Amazon and they had all arrived and been put away.  But with no demand for dishwashing soap I had completely forgotten about the project.

Until today. I went into action.

I went directly to one of my favorite web sites for this kind of thing and searched for dishwashing soap recipes.

I made a container for the soap out of a ball canning jar and a spout.  I used a large drill bit and hammered a hole in the top and inserted my spout.



It is extremely easy to make.  This is what I did.


In a bowl I put in about 2 tablespoons of distilled white vinegar, 2 tablespoons of washing soda and 2 tablespoons of grated Pure-Castile soap (It looks and grates just like cheese).  I added a cup of liquid Pure-Castile soap and then added 3 cups of hot water and whisked it.  I let it cool for a while and whisked it again.

That's it.

You can add essential oils, however my liquid Pure-Castile soap is already flavored (peppermint) so I decided to stay with that.

Once it cooled I used it on a load of dishes and it worked beautifully...except afterwards, my hands felt  *astringenty*.  Afterwards I needed to dip my hands into my jar of coconut oil that is in the kitchen for these kinds of emergencies! I do have dry skin.

The dishwashing liquid does smell very nice I must say.  I think I would use non scented liquid Pure- Castile soap and add my own flavors going forward.  I would like to use lavender essential oil.

Oh...and I found out how to make Washing Soda from Baking Soda.  You just heat it at 400 degrees F for around 30 minutes (for 6 tablespoons).  Washing soda is almost the same as baking soda... just with an extra sodium atom.  This is all pretty fascinating to me and took me on a wild google ride! Anyway I am back now!

I am wondering how long this dishwashing liquid will last.  It is water based.  I am hoping it will last a month without deterioration.

(By the way I have been using my homemade granite cleaner for two weeks now and I love it.  I took a car load of household chemicals to the toxic waste disposal in Stamford last week.  It feels so good ridding the house of chemicals.  And so empowering to make them myself.)

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