Recipe Review: 4-ingredient Home made Dishwasher Detergent

I couple of posts ago, I shared a recipe for green, all-natural DIY dishwasher powdered detergent. The recipe I shared was for "trial size" and the amount I made was good for for about 15 loads of dishes. 

Today I'm revisiting this recipe. I've used it for two months now, and wanted to share my critique of this home made detergent recipe. To recap, here's the very simple recipe. It's made with things you can find at many local grocery stores. 

RECIPE (trial size, 15 washes) 

3/8 cup Citric Acid 

3/8 Cup Washing Soda 

1/8 cup Baking Soda 

1/8 cup Sea Salt

RECIPE (regular size, 60 washes) 

1 1/2 cup Citric Acid 

1 1/2 cup Washing Soda 

1/2 cup Baking Soda 

1/2 cup Sea Salt

Product Review:

Q: WOULD I RECOMMEND THIS PRODUCT TO A FRIEND?

A: YES! I have loved using this. It is simple to make, inexpensive, effective, and all-natural.

Q: WHAT IS THE APPROXIMATE PRICE OF THIS PRODUCT? 

A: After buying the initial ingredients, the cost per load is only pennies. 

Breakdown of item costs: 

• 2 lb box baking soda - $2.00 (Walmart)
• 7.5 oz jar Citric Acid - Approx. $4.00 (Walmart)
• 3 lb box washing soda - $3.97 (Walmart)
• 26 oz Morton Natural Sea Salt (fine) - $2.00 (Walmart)

Each load only calls for 1 Tablespoon of detergent mixture. So, for the grand total of about $12, you have enough materials to create a LOT of detergent that will last you quite a while. The citric acid was most expensive item, but you can buy in bulk from Amazon or other local stores (such as a canning supply store) and your cost per dishwasher load would go down even more. 

Q: WHAT DID YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT THIS PRODUCT?

A: There are a couple reasons I will continue to use this detergent recipe: 

It's all-natural with no toxic chemicals:

I've been using liquid and powdered detergent for a long time with brands like Finish, Palmolive, Cascade, etc. I've preferred liquid over powdered detergents, because I always felt like the powdered ones left more of a residue that liquid ones. Whether powder or liquid, though, there always seems to be a little residue from the detergent.) Another important fact is, all these items are filled with harsh chemicals. There are warnings on the boxes that caution the user to keep away from children, and to not ingest. As of late, I've wondered why we put this stuff through the machine that "cleans" the items we eat off of. A part these products end up being ingested by us. So why am I even using this? These items are toxic, and I'm putting them on my forks and knives. Yikes. I like that my 4-ingredient recipe is so simple, and made with things that are natural and safe for consumption. 

It's super effective:

I feel like my dishwasher has been wanting to die for a while. Since we have lived in this house (for 2 years now) there have been 7 or 8 instances where the dishwasher lines get clogged, and water won't run through the washer. There will be old water left in the bottom of the dishwasher that won't drain, and fresh water won't be flushed in to the system to actually wash anything. The washer and kitchen end up smelling like mildew and rotting food, and it's so gross. In order to get it to work, I would have to dump hot water in the basin of the dishwasher manually (maybe 3-4gallons) and then set the washer to "drain" so it would flush the lines. About 70% of the time after than it would work again, but sometimes I would have to flush everything a couple times.
My dishwasher had been acting up like this a couple weeks before I decided to switch to this all-natural powdered detergent. I was nervous that this detergent would clog it up too, so I was cautious. I must tell you, though, since using it, I have had ZERO issues! I think this mixture has even helped to rid the lines of any buildup. After two months of using the all natural home made detergent, the water lines function great in my washer now, and the stainless steel liner on the inside has never looked cleaner. I guess I didn't realize how easily the lines can get clogged by the residue of the store-bought detergents. But if each load I do now is literally a cleanse for my dishwasher, just think about how that cuts down on maintenance and extends the life of that appliance. 

As for actual dish cleaning, my clear glassware comes out without spots. Pots, pans, and metal items look shinier that they have in the past. With plates, cups, bowls, sippy cups, etc., they call come out clean as well. I realize that a lot of what comes out of your dishwasher depends on the age of your dishwasher, how you load it, and if you presoak or leave crusty food on the dishes, but dish detergent definitely plays a major part. (Here's a good article on How to Load and Run a Dishwasher for Efficiency and Ultimate Cleanliness if you're needing pointers.) 

I feel like these 4 basic ingredients in this recipe pack a punch and are much more effective that the traditional store-bought brands. 

It's cheap and very easy to make:

So, the cost per load of this detergent is super inexpensive. And the great thing is, if you're transitioning over to your own home made green cleaning products, you will use all these ingredients for other recipes, or you might even already have them on hand. 

To make this, you just measure each item, dump it in a jar or air-tight container, shake it until it's mixed well, and then it's ready to go. It's even an easy and safe project that I can have my kids help me make. We had a lot of fun making laundry detergent together. This is another cleaning item that they can help me make. It's part science lesson, part household responsibility lesson, and part family fun/quality time. 

Q: WAS THERE ANYTHING THAT SURPRISED YOU ABOUT THIS PRODUCT?

A: I was REALLY surprised that it fixed the issues I've been having with my dishwasher, and that it cleaned the interior of my dishwasher so well. 

I was surprised out how little I need to use to get my dishes clean. 

I was surprised that even though I had a prejudice against powdered detergents, this has cleaned better than any liquid detergent product I've used. 

Conclusion: 

I am really pleased with this recipe, and I hope my friends and family will give it a try. It affirms my opinion that you don't need to spend a ton of money to get safe and effective home cleaning products. We have officially gone 100% green with all our cleaning supplies in the house. There are still some cleaning solutions that I'm experimenting with (like window/glass cleaner, all-purpose cleaners), but I won't be changing or trying a different dishwasher detergent recipe any time soon. 

Home Made Carpet/Cloth Upholstery Deodorizer

Dingy carpets needing a refresher?

                      

We've had our dog for about 2 months now. When we got her, I was determined that my house would NOT smell like dog. I don't want anyone who comes into my home to know that I have a dog unless they see her.

Between the dog and young kids, my carpets can quickly absorb all sorts of smells...and even if I vacuum every day, some things still linger...UNLESS I use a really simple homemade (and green) carpet deodorizer. This is a good in-between if you're not feeling like you're at the point where you need to shampoo your carpets, but if you need an extra boost of freshness.

Things you'll need: 

• Baking Soda
• Essential Oils (OPTIONAL, but it adds a really nice fragrance. I like to use Peppermint, Eucalyptus, and Lavender - 3 drops of each. It's a fresh, relaxing and invigorating scent.)
• A sprinkle bottle/shaker can (you can use an old parmesan cheese container, a mason jar with holes poked in the lid, or they even sell 12 oz baking soda bottles with a sprinkle top.)

Directions:

1. Measure out 3 cups of baking soda and place in a plastic bowl. 
2. Add 9-10 drops of your favorite essential oils. 
3. Mix well, and eliminate any clumps in the baking soda. 
4. Place in your shaker of choice. 
5. Take your homemade carpet deodorize and sprinkle very lightly across carpets or rugs (or even cloth upholstered furniture). This amount should cover about 500 square feet of carpet. Let it sit for at least 15 minutes, then vacuum up. With this deodorizer, though, I think the longer it sits the better. It's my recommendation to just sprinkle things all over the carpet right before you go to bed, and when you wake up the next morning, you can vacuum and have extra fresh carpets. The overnight method gives the baking soda LOTS of time to absorb strong odors. 
6. Enjoy fresh carpets for the next 3 hours until your youngest gets her hands on a brand new bottle of parmesan cheese and dumps it all out behind the living room chair. But hey! Now you have an empty bottle to use for your homemade carpet deodorizer. That living room area will probably need some attention.

I'm Going Green - Part 2

I remember when I had the conversation with my husband two weeks ago and told him I wanted to go green. I think he is amiably indifferent, so that's easy for me. But I feel like I had to say it out loud and say it to him so he could be aware of any strange behaviors he encounters over the next couple weeks. She's using baking soda or vinegar to clean everything? Including her hair? She's crazy... (FYI, the no-'poo method is really effective. I've been trying it for 3 weeks now, and my hair feels super healthy and clean. It is a little bizarre if it's something you're not used to, but the way it makes my hair and scalp feel makes it worth it.) I know my husband loves me and my quirks, though. He even verbally acknowledged the work I've been doing to keep our family safer, healthier, and happier. As a man of few words when it comes to "words of affirmation" (See "The Five Love Languages" by Dr. Gary Chapman), I will take that as compliment to my efforts. 

Before I made the commitment to change, I first wondered: Isn't this kind of weird? Will it really be that weird for me? But, you know, the more I thought about, I don't think it will be. It fits into my recent quest to simplify and declutter (Inspired by Marie Kondo). I also feel like we've moved towards a lot of sustainable practices in our family. We have a garden and use our home-grown fruits and vegetables for our food. We raise our own chickens for eggs and meat (they cage-free, and very happy ladies, until we kill them.). We generally buy used (from clothes to furniture to vehicles, etc.) and recycle a LOT with our DIY projects. We carpool or use a pretty fuel-efficient vehicle for Brett getting to work. We love to be frugal and save money by doing or making things ourselves. I was also raised to be very environmentally conscious. 

In the third grade, I won a city-wide art contest that all of the Mesa, AZ elementary schools grades 1-6 participated in (it's a pretty big school district). The topic was "Recycle Today For A Better Tomorrow". As prizes, I got to shake hands with the mayor at some city council. I also had my original artwork hung in the Mesa Public Library for years (it was gone the last time I went there. They did some remodeling...so I wonder where it went, or if it moved to a different part of the library, or if it's in storage or just gone. The city recycling company also came and gave a presentation to my third grade class where they taught about the benefits and importance of recycling, and gave us lots of fun little freebies. Recycling and taking care of the earth have always been a big concern of mine, even when I was young.

So...going green with cleaning products and home products is totally not a stretch for me. I feel like it will give me satisfaction on many levels. I'm excited to experiment and to get started. I'm sure I'll learn a lot through trial and error, and will eventually have lots of anecdotes and advice for anyone who wants to got the DIY Green Cleaning route as well. 

Here are the list of homemade household cleaners I would like to make and have on hand (some of which I already do. Follow the links to see what I've tried.) I'm still investigating beauty products (soaps, shampoos/conditioners, lotions, moisturizers, lip balms, salves), so a post on that are soon to come. 

• All-purpose Cleaner
• Glass/Window Cleaner
• Dish Detergent (powder, borax-free)
• Laundry Detergent Powder (omit the Purex crystals and use a plant-based bar soap to make this truly green. An alternative recipe that looks similar to the one I've used, but have not tried, can be found here.)
• Disinfectant
• Fabric deodorizer/Air Freshener (like homemade Febreze)
• Soft Scrub/Toilet Scrub 
• Floor Cleaner (for mopping)
• Carpet cleaner (shampoo)
• Carpet Freshener/Deodorizer
• Foaming hand-soap
• Wood cleaner 
• Gel Air freshener

DIY All-Natural Dishwasher Detergent (Borax Free)

I made the plunge into an all-green DIY cleaners lifestyle. I may have jumped into this a little prematurely, because I just packed up all the old cleaning supplies in my house (ALL OF THEM), and put them in a giant box, and gave them away to a neighbor friend who would use them. (The above image doesn't show the laundry products, dish soaps/detergents, or hand soaps. In the end, it was a very heavy box full of cleaners.) I was so pleased with myself, and realized how much I not only cut down on chemical cleaners, but also on the overall clutter. I've reduced the space dedicated to keeping my cleaning supplies by half. Quitting traditional cleaners cold turkey has caused some initial inconvenience, because I haven't made all of my own green DIY products yet. If I need something, I kind of need to figure it out right away, and get a recipe together quickly so I can address whatever cleaning need I have. Luckily with DIY cleaners, a lot of them are made from the same ingredients, and as long as you have the basics on hand, you can get things together pretty quickly. 

A higher-priority cleaning product on my list was dishwasher detergent. I've been putting dishes off for a couple of days because we've been sick and I just hate doing dishes (and I had not made detergent yet). That's always the ONE THING in the house that really seems to get away from me. So, this weekend I had a lot of catch up to do. 

I didn't want to just throw things together, though. I researched a lot of different methods and recipes. Several DIY recipes called for Borax...but I also saw several that were anti-borax for possible health reasons. I found recipes for liquid gel detergents and powdered detergents. Ultimately, I decided to go the Borax-free powdered route because it seemed the simplest and was the healthiest and very effective. Since I'm experimenting and trying to find the right fit for me, I made a trial size based on some recipes I found on the internet. I got the original recipe from realfoodrn.com and thankyourbody.com (it was the same recipe on both sites), and just cut it down considerably. I didn't want to mix together stuff for 50 loads if I didn't like the outcome. If this recipe doesn't pan out, I'm going to try a slightly different recipe that I found on drkarenslee.com.

NOTE: I did manage to try this recipe with one load tonight. It seemed to clean everything pretty well. I really don't have any complaints. I've read that a lot of people will also put vinegar in as a rinse-agent in the second compartment. It's supposed to reduce spots and really make things sparkle. We lost the cap to that second compartment...so I haven't tried that. But my dishes came out clean, so I don't feel like I'm missing anything. 

DIY All-Natural Dishwasher Detergent (Borax Free)

RECIPE: 

Though this is a "trial size", it still makes enough for 15 loads of dishes! The only harder-to-find ingredient was the citric acid. I found it in the canning section of a Walmart Supercenter for under $3.  I had to go to two different Walmarts to find it because the first one was out of stock. You can also buy in bulk through amazon...but I've found that you don't need too much, and I didn't want to wait for it to ship to me.

Ingredients:

3/8 cup Citric Acid

3/8 Cup Washing Soda

1/8 cup Baking Soda

1/8 cup Sea Salt

Directions: 

Mix all ingredients and combine in a storage container (I used a disposable tupperware container). Use 1 Tablespoon per load. This Borax-free recipe will clump up a little in the container. I give mine a good shake before using it to loosen everything up. I've read that if you have really hard water, use a little more citric acid.

DIY Green All-Purpose Cleaner

All-purpose cleaner: 

I've tried a few different recipes, and settled on this one as a favorite (for now. I'm still new to this, so it may change). It's simple and effective.

• 2 cups infused vinegar (see Joybilee Farm's Thieves Vinegar recipe, or other recipe ideas below). 
• OR use 2 cups plain distilled vinegar plus 10 drops of a good cleaning essential oil (like anything citrus, or tea tree oil, etc. You can research good EOs with cleaning properties). 
• 2 cups water (I use our RO water for cleaning solutions).

I have come to think that vinegar infusions are GREAT. They don't require essential oils, which can be expensive, and they pull even more beneficial agents from the items you're infusing into the vinegar. Infused oils & vinegars will have different (and sometimes more) health benefits than essential oils do (read a good article about this here.)

Things I learned About Vinegar + Baking Soda: 
I've really enjoyed using a vinegar combo cleaner. I've tried a few different combos. One thing i learned is that you DO NOT combine baking soda and vinegar in the same mix. A lot of online recipes call for a little of both. But if you remember back to elementary school science, this creates a fizzy reaction that will eventually stop fizzing and will just be salt water, essentially. Salt water doesn't clean. Vinegar cleans, and baking soda cleans, but not together. 

Things I learned About Vinegar: 
If you don't want your house smelling like a pickle factory while cleaning, use infused vinegar or essential oil. The first time I put a cleaner together, I just used water and vinegar because I didn't have any essential oils like the online recipe called for. While I was cleaning, and the surfaces were wet, it just smelled like vinegar. I didn't really like that, and was afraid it would stink up the whole house. Vinegar is a strong smell. But after it dried, the smell went away and the surfaces were clean and smooth. I didn't want that smell again, so I looked around my kitchen and used citrus peels (grapefruit and clementines) and put them in the cleaning solution. It sat overnight and then next day when I used it to clean, it somehow changed the acidic vinegar smell. It didn't smell like vinegar anymore, and the smell got better day by day. 

That's when I decided I would create an infused vinegar that I could always have on had. My infused vinegar I'm working on now includes: distilled vinegar, citrus peels, cinnamon sticks, cloves, rosemary sprigs, lavender springs, lemon balm leave (I took some of the herbs I had in my herb garden last year, and I dehydrated a bit before the winter came. I'm so glad I did! I never thought I would use my lavender, especially, but I'm finding a use for it now.) The suggestion from Joybilee Farm is to let the vinegar solution steep for 4 weeks before use. But you can honestly use it any time. The longer it sits, though, it will be better infused with all these great items I listed, and it will smell less like vinegar when cleaning. 

If you have mason jars, this is probably something that you could get working on right away. You can make your own infused vinegars with a variety of herbs, spices, fruits and plants that hold known health benefits. 

Here are some other vinegar infusion ideas: 

• pine (read more about pine health benefits here)
• herb-tastic: lavender, clary sage, rosemary, mint (or whatever your favorite herbs form your garden may be)
• lime & mint (there are many benefits to any kind of citrus oil like lime, lemon, orange, and grapefruit.)
• orange & cinnamon (see benefits of orange or cinnamon)
• lemon & rosemary (read about the uses of lemon and of rosemary)
• thieves vinegar: citrus peels, whole cloves, rosemary, lavender, cinnamon stick (learn more about these ingredients here)
• ginger spice: Ginger root, cinnamon stick, cloves, allspice, nutmeg (read about the uses of these ingredients here.)
• rose petal (read about the uses and benefits of rose here.)