I've been drumming up this post for a while now and here it goes. I've been trying to make things at home instead of buying them in the store and seeing what works better (or tastes better) and figuring out what is worth the effort. There are some great books out there about this. The Homemade Pantry is the next on my book-list. One thing that I've been struggling to make at home has been dish-washing detergent. I found one recipe for a liquid dish-washing detergent that was better than all the powders that I found but it was still a little lacking. The soap separated between uses, I still needed to scrub sticky stuff before running a load, it had issues. So, I did some thinking and I found a way to make it better.
Most of the green cleaners that you buy in the store say that they use "all natural enzymes" to clean stuff usually coconut or citrus. And I thought hey, I found a tutorial to make that from Clean Eats at the Zoo on Pinterest. The recipe that I had on hand called for 1/2 cup of distilled vinegar and I figured that 1/2 cup of orange enzyme infused vinegar would would even better. I was right!! WooHoo! And I'm still only using stuff that I have at home on a regular basis (that's very important to this process for me).
Now I had it cleaning better but it was still separating and I thought hmm what about those coconut enzymes, I have coconut milk around maybe that will help it clean and the fat in it should act as an emulsifier. Score two for me! It worked. So here's my recipe:
1 1/2 cups of water
1/2 cup citrus enzyme vinegar
2 Tbsp LemonShine (or fresh lemon juice)
2 Tbsp Kosher Salt
2 Tbsp coconut milk (unsweetened)
1 Tbsp washing soda
1/4 cup castile soap
12 drops essential oils (optional)
Heat the water and vinegar mixture to boiling.
Reduce heat to simmering and add salt, washing soda, coconut milk, & lemon shine one ingredient at a time to prevent boiling over. There will be a chemical reaction so, be careful!
Stir together until all of those ingredients are dissolved completely.
Pour hot liquid into blender. Leave top ajar but covering the top.
Turn blender on while still covering top. Once the liquid stops bubbling to the top, pour in the castile soap.
Pour into container of your choice and let cool before using.
As you can see the liquid will still separate a little during the cooling process but shake it up once it's cool and it'll stay together pretty well. (This picture is of a double batch.) And best of all. It really cleans the dishes! I use approx. 1 Tbsp liquid in the pre-wash and 1 Tbsp in the wash in my dish washer but I have an older model portable machine. Newer machines might not need as much soap.
And as for the cost of it, it's way less than store bought soap. I haven't broken down the cost per ingredient because the only thing I don't keep around is the LemonShine and the washing soda. I bought them specifically to start making dish detergent. For a bottle the size I made today, it probably cost me less than a dollar and it'll last me 2-3 weeks at one load of dishes per day.
Happy dishes!!
UPDATE: I've found that some stickier messes (mostly peanut butter in my house) don't always come off with this detergent but one teaspoon each of baking soda and kosher salt in the pre-rinse have solved that problem.
UPDATE: I've found that some stickier messes (mostly peanut butter in my house) don't always come off with this detergent but one teaspoon each of baking soda and kosher salt in the pre-rinse have solved that problem.
