I have not been home much lately as I have been living with my mother and helping her with the care of my dad, but I did get home this weekend and on Monday I made my second batch of laundry detergent. Recently Pabu has been very itchy. He has been waking us up and gnawing at his hind quarters. Poor little man. I bathed him yesterday and gave him a big trim and while I was combing him out (gasp) I saw a flea. I have not seen fleas in years and was totally aghast! I quickly picked it off of him and killed the damn thing. He has white hair so it is very easy to see a flea and I found one other and killed that little bugger too. I did not find anymore, but where there is one flea, there are others.
I could not imagine how he had gotten fleas and with much thinking I am certain they have come from the Coyotes that are in our back yard every night. We have had no snow to speak of since October and the grass is a perfect place for the fleas to hide and then jump onto a host like Pabu. I ran, did I say I ran, to the vets and got Frontline for all three pets (I hate putting those chemicals on the animals but there was not good other choice)...and then I did wash.
I washed everything in the whole damn house that I could. Bedding, dog beds, dog coats, sofa throws and on and on. I must have gone up and down the stairs 50 or more times as my washer and dryer are in the basement.
Hopefully I have won the first round with these pesky creatures and my home made laundry detergent did the trick. There are tons of recipes all over the internet for both dry and liquid detergent so I won't bore you with that. The only three ingredients are below and fairly cheap and make many batches of detergent.
I had this wonderful glass container that was housing some split peas and thought it would
make a perfect container for my creation.
You can hand grate the soap, but frankly with a Cuisinart why would I do that? And my Cuisinart is so old it is practically vintage in its own right. With the shredder attachment it took all of 30 seconds to make mincemeat of the soap.
Add the washing soda and Borax and VOILA!!
I've seen so many sites about how easy and cheap it is to make your own detergent, but I haven't tried doing so because I worry my homemade concoction may not be as effective as the store-bought variety. What has your experience been? Do the clothes come out as clean?
ReplyDeleteHonestly I have never found much difference between one detergent and the next. Some smell better than others in my opinion, but otherwise they all seem to do the trick...and this one is no different. The Cuisinart does not shred a small piece of the soap (you can see it in the jar). This can be used to pre-treat any stains. It works!!!
DeleteHey my Cuisinart looks just like yours! Is that because we are both old?!
ReplyDeleteYes Pam that is why! Mine is from the late early 80's and still works as well as it did the day I bought it.
DeleteThat should have said early 80's.
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