As well as harvesting wild edibles to enhance my nutrition, I love making my own products for use around the house – I know what ingredients I have put in and I save money.  These two recipes come from Wendyl Nissen who has been collecting recipes for homemade cleaning products for years.  www.wendylsgreengoddess.co.nz

I’ve now been using these two recipes below for several years, they work, they’re cheap and they’re very easy to make. How empowering is that!

Laundry Detergent
1.5 litres of hot water
1/2 bar sunlight soap grated
1/2 cup washing soda
50gms borax from chemist or Bin Inn
1 litre hot water

Mix grated soap in a saucepan with 1.5 ltres of water and heat on low until dissolved. Stir in washing soda and borax. Stir until thickened and remove from heat. Add 1 litre of hot water to a bucket. Add soap  mixture and mix well. Fill bucket with another 5 litres of hot water and mix well.  Add about 20 drops lavender oil for a nice fragrance.  The recipe says to set aside for 24 hours or until it thickens.  We find it is best to pour it , using a funnel freshly stirred straight into milk bottle containers.  If you leave it until it gets cold it goes gluggy and doesn’t pour easily.  Use 1/2 – 1 cup per washing load.  Either squeeze it out of the milk bottle container or put it into a container you can dip a cup into.

Liquid Handwash
250ml boiling water
2 tbsp grated Sunlight soap
3 tsp glycerol
2 tsp rosewater (optional) or 5 drops Lavender oil

Add the grated soap to the boiling water, stir, then let sit for about 10 minutes until it melts. Next, stir in the glycerol and rosewater or  5 drops lavender oil. When the mixture is smooth, pour into an empty soap dispenser bottle. Do this while it is still warm as it will set to a jelly when cold and be quite hard to pour.
Hot tip: when you get near the bottom of the liquid soap in the bottle and it stops coming out, pour in a small amount of hot water to make it more liquid for dispensing.