Homemade Natural Laundry Liquid

Do you love the smell of fresh laundry? There’s nothing better than crawling into bed with a clean set of sheets or slipping on fresh clothes straight out of the wash and getting a waft of that fresh, clean smell. It’s almost a nostalgic smell that brings back memories of mum before you had the responsibility of doing your own washing.

Unfortunately a lot of commercial laundry liquids are actually filled with many potentially harmful substances such as sodium lauryl (dodecyl) sulfate (a surfactant), sodium laureth (lauryl ether) sulfate (a surfactant), sodium coco sulfate (a surfactant), Benzisothaizolinone and many others. So while your clothes and sheets may smell delightful, you’re actually exposing yourself and your family to some potentially harmful chemicals that may cause changes to skin elasticity, skin irritation, become environmental toxins, and even be contaminated with 1,4-Dioxane which if not removed during manufacture has been shown to be a carcinogen.

However all is not lost, you can still have that fresh, clean smell from washing your clothes and linen by using natural ingredients to make your own laundry liquid at home. The added bonus of making it yourself is you can experiment with different scents to find your favourite or even have specific scents that you use for different types of washing! Lavender for towels? Citrus for clothes? there are so many possibilities using a range of different essential oils.

Our recipe contains castile liquid soap which is a product made through the age old process of saponification which is derived from the Latin word “sapo” and literally means soap-making.

What you will need:

• 1/2 cup of washing soda
• 1/8 cup of salt
• 1/2 cup of castile liquid soap
• 1 tablespoon of citric acid
• 8 cups of hot water
• 8 drops of rose geranium essential oil*
• 8 drops of orange essential oil*

*You can create your own preferred scent using natural essential oils. The rose geranium and orange creates a lovely floral and fruity smell that makes your clothes smell really fresh.

Process

• In a large jar or something with a lid that can be shaken up – pour the washing soda, salt and citric acid
• Top with half the hot water and swish around to dissolve as much as possible.
• Add the Liquid castile soap
• Top with the remaining hot water
• Add essential oils
• Shake up to combine

* Caution – If using a glass jar, add the hot water slowly to prevent sudden temperature changes which may cause the glass to crack or break.

Use 1/2 a cup per wash of normal washing or 1 cup for extra dirty items Don’t worry if there are still clumps throughout, just give the mixture a shake each time before use and pour in while the water is filling the machine. (For a top loader)

Happy washing – We hope your laundry smells as fresh as ours! Let us know if you have any favourite scent combinations for your laundry liquid!