DIY Dishwasher Powder

A dishwasher containing clean dishes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Happy Friday everybody! Hope you are as excited for Memorial Day Weekend as we are 🙂 We think you’ll love this simple DIY recipe that will have your dishes sparkling in no time! It’s perfect if you are having people over to BBQ and plan to run multiple dishwasher loads.  Rather than spend tons of money of dishwashing powders that are loaded with toxic chemicals, you can make this simple powder with just four ingredients!

DIY Dishwashing Powder

Ingredients:

• 2 cups baking soda
• 2 cups borax
• 6 tbsp. of citric acid (you can order online from amazon here, or get it at some home improvement stores)
• 25 drops of your favorite citrus essential oil, or a combination of your favorites
• 1 large glass jar to store your mix.

Directions:

1. Combine the baking soda, borax, and citric acid in the storage jar and shake to mix.
2. Then add your essential oils (up to 25 drops), mix again.
3. When you want to run your dishwasher add 2 tbsp to the soap compartment and run as usual.

If you have hard water or want to ensure that your glasses are spot free, pour 1 cup of distilled vinegar at the bottom of your dishwasher before running it. This will take care of any spots!

Have you ever made your own dishwashing powder? What did you think of the DIY version?

DIY Dryel Sheets

Laundry (Photo credit: Bilal Kamoon)

 

So we aren’t the first to write about making your own Dryel sheets, you know the at home “dry cleaning” or garment refreshing kit created by Proctor & Gamble. In fact, Jillee, from the popular blog One Good Thing By Jillee wrote an amazing post about her experiment with crafting a DIY Dryel recipe. We’ve seen similar recipes around the web, but none have recommended specific brands for the ingredients that are safer and more environmentally sound. Enter Perfect Shine’s role in this DIY experiment. We are always working to share recipes and cleaning tips that are safe for you, your family, and the planet. So here is the basic recipe for DIY Dryel sheets!

 

Ingredients:

 

• 1 cup warm water
• 1 tsp. borax
• 1 tsp. oxygen bleach
• 3 drops of your favorite essential oil (lavender works well, so do citrus-scented oils)

 

We recommend using Nature Clean Oxygen Bleach which get’s an A rating from the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) Guide To Healthy Cleaning. This brand is much safer according to EWG than some of the other brands (even Eco-friendly ones like BioKleen) on the market. You can order it online from Grass Roots for just $7.99.

 

The debate is still up in the air about the safety of borax. For cleaning we think it is perfectly safe. Here is an article from Crunch Betty that debates both sides of the Borax coin. If you need to dry clean your clothes, then using borax is less toxic than the other chemicals most dry cleaners use. The other ingredients are pretty straightforward. No dangers unless you are pregnant. Then you want to limit your exposure to essential oils or fragrance.

 

To Use Your Homemade Dryel Solution:

 

1. Pre-treat any stains by spraying the stains directly with hydrogen peroxide (3%) and rubbing the spot with a clean, white cloth.
2. Then soak the same white cloth it in a solution of 1 cup warm water, 1 teaspoon borax, 1 teaspoon oxygen bleach and 3 drops of essential oil.
3. Squeeze out the excess liquid, add the cloth into the Dryel “steam bag” with your dry clean only clothing and put it in the dryer for 30 minutes.

 

Pretty simple huh? Four ingredients is all you need to refresh your dry clean only clothing! Do you use Dryel, or do you usually just take your clothes to the dry cleaners?

 

 

 

Clean While You Sleep: The Shower Edition!

Showerhead (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

It’s almost the weekend again! We hope you’ve had a great week, and have some fun plans lined up for the weekend. Today we’ve got a recipe for you to get your house clean while you sleep… so you can spend the rest of your time doing more important things like playing with your kids or taking the pup for a walk! This is a super simple and natural recipe for cleaning your shower overnight. By letting the cleaner sit overnight, all you have to do is rinse the shower in the AM! Do this every 2 or 3 weeks to keep your shower fresh and prevent buildup.

 

Ingredients:

 

• 1/4 cup borax
• 1/4 tsp tea tree oil
• 2 cups hot water
• Funnel
• Empty spray bottle

 

Directions:

 

1. Using your funnel, pour the borax into the empty spray bottle.
2. Add the hot water & tea tree oil to the bottle, put the nozzle back on the bottle and give it a shake until the borax dissolves.
3. Spray the shower cleaner onto all the surfaces of your shower and let it sit overnight.
4. In the AM rinse your shower, depending on how dirty it is you may need to take a light sponge to some surfaces.

 

Looking for a fun variation? Try adding other essential oils in your favorite fragrances! We love lavender, eucalyptus, and lemon for bathrooms! If you give this recipe a try, let us know what you think!

 

DIY: A Collection of The Best Homemade Dish Detergent Recipes

A dishwasher containing clean dishes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So there have been a lot of different bloggers posting recipes for DIY dish detergent, both powder and liquid. Rather than reinvent the wheel, we will share the best recipes from around the web, and let you choose which works best for your home. A couple of notes about the recipes:

• Many of the powdered detergents call for borax. Some people take issue with using borax on dishes (which we eat off of). If you opt for a recipe with borax we HIGHLY recommend using vinegar as rinse aid. This will eliminate the issues with borax.
• These recipes can save you a lot of money! Some bloggers found that homemade detergent was as cheap as $0.09/load, less than half the cost of Cascade at $0.21 a load!

Onto the recipes. The first comes from One Good Thing By Jillee! We like that in her recipe Jillee offers several substitutes and really breaks down the process of making and using homemade detergent!

• Homemade Dishwasher Detergent & Scouring Powder from One Good Thing By Jillee. We love One Good Thing by Jillee, but this recipe does have borax. But the instructions and commentary are great!
• Homemade Dish Soap & Rinse Agent from DIY Natural. Another good dishwasher detergent recipe.
• 3 Ingredient Homemade Dishwasher Detergent from Practical Stewardship. We love the simplicity of the recipe and the results!
• Borax Free Dishwasher Detergent from My Healthy Green Family. Yay, a recipe without borax!

So there you have it, 4 different recipes for making your own dishwasher detergent that are better for your planet and your wallet! Do you make your own dishwasher detergent? If you have any tips share them!