Well, I never thought the day would come would I would see the bottom of my five gallon pail of laundry soap and yesterday was that day. I had made my own liquid laundry soap a year and a half ago after reading The Green Guide that had a simple recipe in it for making your own detergent. Now, I didn’t end up using their recipe, but it inspired me to make my own and I used a recipe from The Wellness Mama. And did it ever last. I can guarantee that each load of laundry cost less than five cents. It took less than twenty minutes to make. And I could use it in my front-loading high efficiency washing machine. It’s basically magic.

And here it is, the latest batch. Works like a charm too.

Now, I am not going to bore you with the details of how to make the soap. The Wellness Mama covers that. I just wanted to share my love for making my own laundry soap, since it is one of the things we do as a part of sustainable city living. There are so many chemicals in our world these days that if I can eliminate one or two from my life than why wouldn’t I. And it is easy. And cheap. It isn’t like making your own cheese or something labour intensive like that, it is really simple and it works. You don’t have to live in the country either to do this, it is suitable for city dwellers as well.

If liquid laundry detergent isn’t your style, she also has a powder detergent you could try. I haven’t tried it yet, but it is made with the same ingredients so I am assuming it would work. And I don't have any affiliation with her blog. I actually hope she doesn't mind that I am sharing her recipe.

And now that we have Borax in the house (one of the ingredients), I also use it to clean the toilets and some other small cleaning projects. If you ever see The Green Guide at the library, I would highly recommend picking it up and reading it. It will probably freak you out at first, since it describes all the chemicals in our world these days and how they are all harmful, but it also offers solutions to living in our world, and that is the part I love. We certainly should be educated about our environment, and it is a great book at breaking that down.

So if you are even thinking about doing one thing to "green" your home, ask yourself, "why wouldn't you make your own laundry soap?"

Here is the recipe one last time. Save it: http://wellnessmama.com/462/homemade-laundry-detergent/

Judging by the cover, this will be an excellent book.

Well, time to throw another load it and then get back out there and weed the garden some more. And by garden some more, I really mean read my new gardening book, Garden Anywhere by Alys Fowler, my gardening idol. The garden will live one more day without my TLC. Don't you think?

“If you find the right plant for the right place, your hardest job is done.”

— Alys Fowler, Garden Anywhere