Category: Groovy Hippy Stuff

We have been using cloth napkins for three or four years now. It is all a part of our effort to create less waste and live simply. We are still reliant on paper towels but not nearly as much as in the past. Our old napkins have rotated into the role of paper towels (hehehe role not roll). That makes me really happy. Not the pun, the reduced waste. We are still using paper to clean the really gross stuff, grease and oils, that would be difficult to wash out even with my powerful  homemade laundry soap. Sometimes, depending on where we travel, we even take a stack of the reusables with us. I feel super guilty and weird using a whole paper towel for anything! Even the towels that are made to ‘select a size’ are too big for most needs. So I am always tearing off little pieces and leaving the rest of the towel on the counter by the roll. I was staying at my sister Holly’s and she caught me tearing off a piece and yelled “Oh my God! I wondered who was doing that! I keep finding scraps of towels on the counter, I though it was one of the kids”. I thought it was pretty funny.

So here is what I have going on now that we made new napkins. It’s working great and we are saving money on expensive towels. These are our old napkins, they are all the same fabric and it’s kind of like a flannel.

We simply recycle old tissue boxes. One has the new clean napkins stacked inside and the other is for dirtys. It’s a pretty good system. I was tired of the old napkins. They were functional but I wanted something with more of a cotton or cotton blend, like traditional cloth napkins. Now anyone who knows me at all, knows I have an unhealthy obsession with fabric, I always have. I even worked in a fabric store for a while just after high school. I literally have plastic tubs full of fabric and that doesn’t stop me from buying more. One year for my birthday my mom-in-law Margaret let me go fabric shopping in her also unhealthy storage fabric closet. So when I decided to start making new napkins I had a boat load of fabric to choose from. This also let me use a bunch of different fabrics without the commitment of sewing an entire garment. Plus I got to touch, play with, rub against my skin, and organize all my precious fabrics. It’s more Gollum and less “It puts the lotion in the basket” than it sounds.

So first I washed and ironed the fabrics. Then I cut them into various pieces depending on how much fabric I had. Most of them are either 6″x 12″ or 8″x 10″.

I used the serger and did a three thread rolled hem on all the edges.

I put them into the tissue box and BAM!

Now the thing that I am the most excited about is special occasion napkins! I already had some good autumn fabrics. (Thanks Margaret!)

Now I am looking to get some more Halloween fabric. It would have been nice to get some 4th of July fabric but we are well into summer hibernation now.

I found the bicycle and teardrop trailer fabric from the top of this article, at a small quilting shop in Morro Bay. Super expensive but I fell in love with those two prints. I can’t wait to get a chance to go to a real fabric store and get some more fabrics that are a little more ‘us’. Maybe some Illuminati fabric!?! (it’s just owls). Lots of possibilities! It’s never too early to look at any of the ‘holiday’ prints like Valentines or St. Patty’s day. I’m hoping I might even find some clearance or out of season discounts.

What are some of you doing to reduce waste? Do you think it is important? Does anyone else have an obsession with fabric? We would love to hear from you!

Homemade liquid laundry soap is simple, easy, inexpensive and it cleans better than store bought. I have a high efficiency washer and it works great and costs less than 3¢ per load.  It also lasts me a year. I have included a controlled ‘stain test’ to show you the difference in performance. In actuality it costs a penny a load but I have been admittedly brainwashed by big business into thinking homemade can’t be as good so I use twice as much. This article will include a little science and some math but since girls can’t be good at science and math, I will just do my best wink wink. This will be my longest article yet but it is full of a bunch of great info.

• 1 bar of soap
• 1 Cup of 20 Mule Team Borax
• 1 Cup of washing soda
• a 5 gallon bucket
• long handled something or other for stirring. I dedicated a wooden salad tong.

There are only 3 ingredients in this laundry soap; bar soap (Dr. Bronner’s or Naptha), Borax and washing soda.   One of the important things about this soap is the fact that it is organic. There are no funky cancer causing ingredients. Now you can use a brand of bar soap called Fels Naptha, which I have done. It works just as well but it is petroleum based and far from organic. I choose to use Dr. Bronner’s organic bar soap. Click on this photo and you can read the ingredients list.

The next ingredient is 20 Mule Team Borax. I use it for a lot of things around the house and wanted a better container than the box it comes in which is why you see it in the photo in an plain plastic jug. The common name for Borax is sodium tetraborate and is also commonly called sodium borate.  The difference is in their crystal water content and is written as either Na2B4O7-10H2O  or Na2[B4O5(OH)4]-8H2O, but again, not a scientist, so I’m not even sure this is right. The only person I know who is smart enough to call me out on this is my friend Debi and she’s loyal enough to help me hide a dead body that I’m not too worried. I am sure that it really doesn’t matter to me, it’s truly a natural occurring mineral chain with no added funky poison stuff and that’s good enough for me. It is mined here in California by the 20 Mule Team company. The third and last ingredient (other than the water or H2O) is washing soda aka sodium carbonate and written Na2CO3. Washing soda should not be confused with baking soda NaHCO3. Washing soda is a highly alkaline compound. It serves a few purposes here. It binds to the minerals that make water hard thereby making the water ‘softer’ and allowing the soap to be more effective. It also acts as a sort of solvent that will dissolve several kinds of common stains. OK, enough science, lets move on to directions, results and math!

First grate the soap and dissolve it into a pot of very hot water. Have enough water in the pot, maybe a couple quarts, to also hold a cup each of the Borax and washing soda. Heat it over low heat until the soap is completely dissolved.

Once the grated soap is dissolved, add a cup of Borax and a cup of washing soda. Stir until it is all dissolved. While you’re waiting on the pot on the stove, fill the 5 gallon bucket about 3/4 full of hot water. Once the pot is ready, add it to the water in the 5 gal bucket. Stir well to incorporate and top off the bucket with water. Stir a few more times the next couple hours and then allow to sit overnight.

The next day you will have anything from a solid gelatinous mass to a barely thickened product. If you use organic bar soap it will be the latter. The time I used the Naptha bar soap, we had to put a paint mixing paddle on the electric drill and use that to stir it. It was literally too thick to stir by hand. So if you use Naptha be prepared to have a really strong stirrer on hand. That soap will also be a light yellow color. You will need either 5 gallons worth of jugs or 10 gallons worth of jugs. Yes, this recipe is supposed to make 10 gallons of ready to use soap. As I stated before, I admit to being brainwashed and thinking I need to use way more soap than necessary so I only yield 5 gallons. A word about storage containers; I used to use retired plastic one gallon milk jugs. I found after about six months they started leaking so I would steer clear of those. They are semi biodegradable and only meant to hold milk for a short time. As you can see from the photo, I have a bunch of retired 1 gallon vinegar containers that seem to stand the test of time. We use a ton of vinegar around here. Any old detergent or laundry bottles should work. I have heard of folks even just leaving it in the 5 gal bucket but that just seems weird, simple, but weird. Yes it is funny where I draw the line so laugh it up! I use a water bottle cut in half as a funnel to make the job slightly less messy. Now, if you are going with the 10 gallon non brainwashed recipe, you will fill the jugs only half way with soap and the rest of the way with water.

To use, simply add about 4 ounces (1/2 cup) directly to the drum with the clothes. I have a high efficiency washer and I put it on top of my clothes after I load it. I do not recommend adding to the soap dispenser! Just put it on top of the clothes before you close the door. It will not suds up like store bought soap. Contrary to what we’ve been programmed to believe, suds do NOT equal clean! In fact they are no good for your HE machine. The products they make special for HE machines are low sudsing. So if you think your clothes are not getting clean, feel free to conduct your own stain removing experiment.

Ok now for the ‘proof is in the washing’ segment of our show. I tried to use as many controls as possible in this test as to validate the results. I used the same load of towels for each test. I used the same amount of staining on the same white cloths. I used 1 teaspoon of mustard, 1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and one tablespoon of red wine. I did one wash with no soap at all, one with store bought soap and one with this batch of home made. Uh, yes, that is a wine glass in the photo, what else were we to do with the rest of the wine?

I have before and after photos (I forgot the before photo of the control, no soap, but used the same quantities of stain). Here are the befores of HM homemade and SB store bought.

Here is the after photo of no soap, store bought and homemade, in that order. The homemade is the only one that left no trace of wine or balsamic vinegar.

The last is an interesting photo. The SB store bought writing can still be seen where as the HM homemade is barely visible. The homemade soap removed almost all of the permanent marker! Pretty cool.

Ok, now lets break down the financials. I will try to do this as simply as possible while still giving as much info as I can.

• $3 for a bar of Dr Bronners Organic Soap
• $3.50 for a box of Arm and Hammer Washing Soda
• $4.00 for a box of 20 Mule Team Borax.

So this is how much it costs to make one batch of soap

• $3 for the bar soap because we use the whole bar
• $.50 for the washing soda. One box contains approx 7 cups
• $.40 for the Borax. One box contains approx 10 cups

That’s a total of $3.90 per batch of organic, natural, nonpoisonous laundry soap. Now let’s break it down even further. I will do the break down for the 5 gallons I use. Maybe at the end of each break down I will just give a final sum for the 10 gallons it actually makes. I just want to be realistic and give you the numbers from the soap I really use, in the quantities I really use. Just keep in mind my brain tells me to use twice as much as I need to and I have learned not to argue with such a powerful mind (most of the time). If your brain isn’t as washed as mine, please by all means go with the 10 gallon version. I would if I could but it is still so cheap I figure it’s not that big of a deal.

• 5 gallons = 640 ounces.
• I use 4 ounces (1/2 cup) per load
• 640 oz ÷ 4 oz = 160 loads
• $3.90 per batch ÷ 160 loads = approx 2 1/5¢ per load
• 160 loads ÷ 52 weeks = approx 3 loads of laundry a week which is about a years worth of soap for us.
• SO IF you made the recommended 10 gallons of soap (this recipe diluted 50% with water) you would have:
• 320 loads per batch at approx 1¢ per load and 6 loads a week for a year.
• A 105 ounce bottle of Tide detergent (96 loads) cost about $.20 per load IF you only use the recommended 1 ounce per load, which no one does.

Now that crazy big ass family the Duggers uses a similar recipe with less Borax and they only use 2 oz (1/4 cup) per load. So if you crunch the numbers on that, they are doing 12 loads a week for a year at a cost of less that 1/2 cent per load.

So to sum it all up, I am paying 2 1/2 cents per load of laundry, that lasts our family (only 3) almost a year. I realize most of you are doing more than 3 loads a week but you could still get at least 6 months out of one batch. It cleans better than store bought and I’m not polluting the earth or our bodies. I could write a whole other article about how store bought detergent contributes to pollution; uses an insane amount of water to produce and package; and a disgraceful amount of fuel to distribute and stock. I use a homemade spot stain treatment of dish washing liquid and hydrogen peroxide that I will share in another article on (mostly) natural cleaners. It works as well as Shout or Spray and Wash. It does a number on under arm shirt stains.

I stopped using dryer sheets and liquid fabric softener for the same reason I stopped using store bought laundry soap. I use wool dryer balls instead. I was on my way to making my own when my friend Debi surprised me with some she had purchased. I use four of them in my dryer every load. I’ve had them well over a year and they work great! I’m guessing they will last many more years. They tumble around with the clothes and dry them a little quicker. I thought they were supposed to get rid of static cling as well but that’s not the case. I originally wanted them because I really missed the smell of my laundry chemicals. Hey, I’m only human! So now I put about 10 to 20 drops off essential oils on the wool balls during the last 10 minutes of the cycle. Works like a charm! And I can use whatever scents suit my fancy that day.

Thanks for reading this extremely long article. I hope it covered any questions you might have. Please leave any comments or questions you may have below. I promise I will get back to you right away!

Take it Simple  -Sam and Stacey-