Naturally Clean: Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

This is another thing that had been on my to-do list for a very long time. I found a recipe from The Eco-Friendly Family for a dishwasher detergent that doesn't contain Borax. Although I use Borax in my laundry detergent, there is a bit of a controversy surrounding it. Borax is listed as being hazardous but only if ingested in large amounts, so I feel more comfortable eliminating it altogether from food and eating surfaces.

To preface the recipe, let me tell you about my dishwasher. When we first moved into our current town home, the dishwasher quit working after 2 wash cycles. I called the landlords and twice they sent someone over to fix it to no avail. They decided to just install a new one. My dishwasher is a little over a year old and it never really cleaned dishes. You have to excessively pre rinse so that it doesn't throw food chunks all over your other dishes. I have to be careful where certain things are placed in the dishwasher or they won't get clean. In other words, we have a bottom of the barrel quality dishwasher. Oh yeah, and hard water on top of that. Some days I felt like I might've been better off just hand washing everything. I was using liquid Cascade for years and it did an alright job but it would leave these weird white spots all over things. Even with Jet Dry, and I eventually switched that out for white vinegar. I don't know if it was soap goo or hard water minerals or what. All I know is I didn't want whatever that was in my food.

I already had most of the ingredients for the detergent except the sea salt and the Lemi-Shine. I do a lot of cleaning with baking soda and I had the washing soda from making laundry detergent. The great thing about the Lemi-Shine and salt is that they soften your water if it's hard. After a week's worth of washes, not once had there been any weird white spots on anything. Sold! It does a good job at getting everything clean, too. Everything should be easily available at your local grocery or big box store.

12 oz container of Lemi-Shine (found with the dish detergents)
1 1/2 cups washing soda
1/2 cup baking soda
1/2 cup sea salt

Mix it all together and store in a dry container. Use 2 tablespoons per load. I like to use white vinegar in the Jet Dry dispenser.

The No 'Poo Method: Week 1

Day 1: Prepared all the info and supplies to begin the No 'Poo adventure.

Day 2: I washed my hair with a clarifying shampoo 3 times. After doing that, I was convinced that there was no way on earth this was going to work and debated just smothering my hair with my usual conditioner. My hair had the consistency of "been bleached one too many times and just got out of a chlorinated pool." Ew. There was no way spraying vinegar and water on it was going to do anything. I did it anyway. After a million rinses I dried off my hair and grabbed my hair pick. Shockingly, it went right through my hair easier than if I had used a mountain of conditioner. I seriously seriously couldn't believe it. I thought for sure this was going to be a one-day failure.

Day 3: I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

Day 4: My hair started to smell a little funky to me so I washed it with a mixture of baking soda and water and did the regular vinegar and water conditioner. Everything seemed to be fine. Still no problem combing out my hair.

Day 5: Still good.

Day 6: I was starting to get paranoid so I asked my husband to smell my head. Sure enough, I was smelling a bit "off." He suggested I use a bit of essential oils in the baking soda mixture. Brilliant! I also decided that adding a bit more baking soda might be a good idea. I mixed up 1 1/2 cups of water with 3 Tbsp baking soda and 5 drops of Tea Tree essential oil. I scrubbed my scalp extra long this time just to make sure. Afterwards I could still smell the Tea tree oil. It smells nice.

Day 7: I asked my husband to smell my head again and he said it didn't smell like anything at all. I'd consider that a success. Maybe this will be a winning combination.

Overall, my hair doesn't feel greasy or like straw. My scalp isn't itchy and doesn't feel dirty. My hair does feel a bit softer and less coarse, though. I think if I keep up with the essential oils, I won't have to be paranoid about smelly hair, either. I did read about putting essential oils on your brush, too. I may try that.

The No 'Poo Method: An Introduction

A few years ago I stumbled upon a web page about a way to keep your hair clean without shampoo or conditioner. It's called the no 'poo (no shampoo) method and it is a natural, chemical free way to keep your hair nice and clean.

Wait, you mean no shampoo? Like ever? Have you lost your mind?

Possibly. And for those of you who know me, I'm a former hair stylist...seriously. But I want to give it a real try.

Starting today, I'm going to try to do this for an entire month to see how it goes. I'll give a full report at the end of each week. And if I like it, I'll never use shampoo again!

I got lots of great information here.

The basic rundown of the no 'poo method is cleansing the hair with baking soda and water and then conditioning with vinegar and water. When we use shampoo, it strips our hair of the natural oils and then we need conditioner to replace them. The scalp notices the natural oils missing and kicks it into overdrive to make up for the lost oil, causing hair to become greasy. It seems to me that the only reason you need to use shampoo is because you used shampoo. Sounds kind of gimmicky to me. Baking soda is able to cleanse the hair and scalp without removing the natural oils so your hair can stay naturally conditioned. Not only does shampoo itself seem unnecessary but most shampoos on the market are full of things that you might want to think twice about putting on your body. I also read that this works wonders for curly hair, and having naturally curly hair, I am very interested to see if this holds true. There are a lot of products on the market that make all kinds of promises, and being a former hair dresser, I've quite literally tried almost all of them, but they never deliver. I know my fellow curly heads can attest to that. So here starts day one and come back next week to see how the first week went!

Product Review: Rubbermaid Reveal Mop

Before I start, I want to state that I was not asked or paid to write this by any person or company. I purchased this item on my own with my own money.


After the death of my Shark steam mop, (and by death, I mean explosion) I went to Home Depot looking for some sort of replacement. Not necessarily another steam mop, but something to quick clean the floors between scrubbings. The only thing that initially came to mind, and what first ended up in my cart, was the Swiffer and a pack of the wet wipes. I can't even begin to describe the knot that appeared in my stomach over this. I'm probably a bit more neurotic than your average person...ok a lot more, but the thought of those chemicals in my house left me feeling extremely uneasy. Not to mention all of the waste. My husband suggested finding a reusable cover for the Swiffer and just not using the bottle of spray chemicals that came with it. That sounded like a better idea and we were off to try and find something that would fit. Unfortunately, there weren't any appropriate options. I was still feeling a bit defeated when my husband pulled down a Rubbermaid Reveal Mop. After looking it over, I realized this was the perfect product for me. It is a spray mop with reusable cloth cleaning pads that velcro onto the bottom and an empty bottle to fill with whatever cleaning solution you prefer. Vinegar and water in my case! All my problems were solved at once! No waste and no chemicals!

The mop itself is self explanatory. Pull out the bottle and fill with cleaner, replace. The mop handle is a comfortable length and the spray handle is convenient and easy. The cloth pads are absorbent and were able to scrub away grime with ease. My toddler's food-throwing is no match for this thing. Afterwards, I threw the cloth pad in the wash with a load of towels and it came out nice and clean. It's extremely lightweight and can be stored anywhere you keep mops, brooms, etc.

I would most definitely recommend this product over any other mops on the market. I never did like Swiffers, anyway. I never felt like they really cleaned. The Reveal does.