Update on Crunchy Cleaning

Hi, so okay, Paul took the kids to Mac Daddy's - I was not invited. Which is fine with me for several reasons, one of which being a nerve that has taken up rather painful intermittent residence in my left hip socket and the other being my need to get a nap in before we do Girl Scouts.

BUT, I'm waiting for something, so I thought I'd share.

Okay, you remember the first time we made laundry soap? I used that stinky old Fels-Naptha and then proceeded to complain about it for three months. Okay, well this time I used a different recipe:

2 bars Lavender castile soap grated fine
2 cups each Washing Soda and Borax

And verdict?

It smells GREAT and does not get Paul's socks clean. I will use it for washing our sheets and other things that don't get really dirty-dirty, just need freshening. It doesn't leave a scent on the clothes and was easy-peasy to make...but hi, if it doesn't get out mud splatters, I'm not even going to try it on cloth diapers. Ew.

So, back to the drawing board! I think there is something with my water and I'll need to use a recipe with baking soda. Because I know you care OH SO MUCH, I will post that when it happens.

In happier cleaning news, have I shared the best glass cleaner recipe ever with you? Because it's freaking amazing - my mirrors are SO SHINY.

I got it from www.crunchybetty.com and I'm fairly sure I've posted this already. But here it is anyway:

1/4 c. rubbing alcohol

1/4 c. white vinegar

1 Tbsp cornstarch

2 c. warm water

And because I need my cleaning stuff to smell nice, I added 3-4 drops of tea tree oil. That just smells super clean to me and it has antibacterial properties...which are probably not effective diluted in 2.5 cups of liquid but whatever. Smells great, works better than anything I've ever seen and (I've just stopped trying to do the math on homemade cleaning stuff because it's always ridiculous. Let's go with 50 cents for the whole bottle to be generous.) Just shake before you use it and you're good to go.

We ALSO started using homemade dishwasher soap this week and so far the results are happy. It's not a huge savings over regular because the fruit preservative I mixed in there for the citric acid is about $4, but it's nice to run the dishwasher and not smell bleach. =)

Ok that's it! Feel free to pass along any ideas and things you use! Next on our list are homemade disinfecting wipes because I use about six of those per bathroom I clean (and I've been cleaning our bathrooms more than once a week lately...don't know what it is, but dusty bathroom baseboards are killing me) and it's a lot of waste. The idea of using anything non-disposable for the germy stuff grosses me OUT, so we'll see how it goes. =)