Squeaky Clean

This is a good post. You’ll want to “Pin” it. ha.

I went old school, like really old school, and made laundry detergent. Well, my friend Joy and I did it together. But I mostly snapped pictures and held the Chunk and she did all of the labor intensive work. So step one in making laundry detergent is to find a friend who will do all of the man power for you.

Here are our ingredients:

This is Joy. She’s a mom to 4 kids.

The spaghetti scooper worked really well to mix all the powders together.

The Borax blew everywhere when pouring out. Just a friendly FYI.

Here’s our final product. This batch made a one gallon container plus a 2 quart container.

The recipe we used was:

1- 4 pound box Borax

1- 4 pound box Washing Sodat

2 Fels Naptha Bars- grated

2 pounds of Baking Soda (Because we have hard water.)

Mix all of the ingredients and store in an air tight container.

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My second ooh and ahh moment came from this tip.

When trying to get all of the grime off of your stove top accessories, pour ammonia into a gallon sized baggie, zip tight, and let sit over night. This worked amazing. I guess it’s the fumes that takes off all of the yuckiness.

Top grate yucky, bottom grate clean.

Top grate yucky, bottom grate clean.

Top grate clean, bottom grate yucky.

Since I did this in 2 batches to show the before and after, I have a few tips.

1. Use 1/2 cup ammonia in a freezer gallon sized baggie. That ammonia is some potent stuff.

2. Put on a cookie sheet just in case it leaks.

3. My first 2 sat in the baggies for about 20 hours and came out a whole lot easier to rinse off than my second 2 that were left in the baggies for only 8 hours.

4. After you take them out of the baggies, rinse under hot hot water, most of the grime will fall right off.  For the stuff that doesn’t, I got a scrubby that I scrubbed all over the grate. Not hard and it didn’t take much longer than washing a regular dish. I threw it away afterward because it was filled with greasy grossness.

 

And that is two steps to a squeaky clean house.