feeling self sufficient

you guys know i love to try my hand at making stuff.  in the past i have made both soap, and laundry detergent.  i took it to another level this week and made the soap to use in my handmade laundry detergent!

the benefits to make the soap myself are that it has very few ingredients (coconut oil, ,lye and water), wasn’t expensive (i used dr bronner’s before, which i love, but was expensive), and i was able to choose my scent (i did lemon and lavender).

because it isn’t designed to moisturize, it is very dry and easy to grate up.  and it smells awesome.  i processed it through the ninja to make sure it was uniformly grated up, then mixed it with borax, washing soda, some oxygen bleach, and a little epsom salt in a giant bucket.  voila, almost 3 gallons of nice detergent ready to go!

because this fall was so hectic, i was behind on making detergent, and went back to store-bought.  i don’t know that this is related, but as soon as the weather turned cold and dry, the squirt’s skin took a nasty turn for the worse (eliminating soy flour from his diet had been keeping his eczema at bay!).  i know that he struggles with dry skin, but wow it was a mess.  we have been keeping him well moisturized and i am hoping that going back to the gentler washing powder will help keep things calm.  it must be maddening to be so itchy!