This post was written by Liesl, the owner of the “other” Good Food Club in Claremont.
“As I’ve asked questions about the food I’m buying and eating, I’ve naturally jumped to asking the same kinds of questions about house cleaning products and body care products. I began to question: WHY would I want to buy shampoo made of many chemicals put together in a factory, when some of these chemicals are not good for the environment and not even good for my body? WHY would I buy a product synthetically made to smell like it dripped straight off rose petals into my bottle? It takes a massive marketing budget and high executive salaries for a multi-national corporation to sell that shampoo in my local supermarket – so WHY would I want to help them make gobs of money by buying their NOT-so-rose-petal shampoo?
Many of us are too busy to home-make alternative products, in which case we have great GFC options for buying ready-made products. Do look at the “Household and Body Product” category on the PGFC shop for amazing ready made earth-friendly and body-friendly products from The Apothecary, Hilary’s Homemade Soap and Naturally Good.
But for those who wish to make their own products at home, The PGFC has a range of earth-friendly ingredients for you to combine into wonderful concoctions which are good for your body/home (and pocket) and great for the environment. I buy bicarb and washing soda from her in bulk and only use that in my washing machine to wash my clothes, along with tea-tree oil to make them smell nice.”
Here are two basic recipes you can start with:
Dishwasher powder
4 parts borax
4 parts washing soda
1 part citric acid
1 part course salt
20 drops lemon essential oil (optional)
Mix and use.
You can make the recipe up with 2 cups borax and washing soda and half a cup each of citric acid and salt.
The glasses can be a little cloudy and be careful to scrape your plates well, but on the whole this recipe is by far the best Hillary has found for the dishwasher. She hasn’t got stock of citric acid at the moment but if there is a demand she can get some. There is a baking shop at Access park that sells citric acid in 2kg bags at a reasonable price.
Washing powder
1 part borax
1 part washing soda
2 parts sunlight soap (grate the sunlight soap and leave for a day to dry.)
Put half the borax and the washing soda together with half the sunlight into the food processor and blend till the soap resembles little beads. Repeat till all the sunlight has been processed.
Use two heaped tablespoons per wash.
NB Rub very dirty clothes with sunlight before washing. To keep whites white, nothing works better than a pre-wash rub of sunlight soap and sunshine.
Other options: I, Christy, have used plain washing soda and plain bicarb in my washing machine to wash my clothes (about 1/2 a cup full). I now use a 50/50 combination of both (about 3/4 cup) and it works like a charm.
For more information on homemade recipes visit http://www.spotlessliving.info/