Natural Laundering Options - DIY Recipe

We have been using natural or fragrance-free laundry solutions for a number of years. Recently two different friends needed to borrow the washer and dryer, and I was overwhelmed by the smell of the chemical fragrances of the laundry solution and dryer sheets that they had brought over to use with their laundry.  The marketing on the dryer sheet box was very deceptive.  It said 'Lavender' and had pictures of flowers, but it was just scented with something synthetic.  Synthetic fragrances are made with proprietary ingredients, so it is hard to know what exactly is in them, but many contain harmful Pthalates and other ingredients which lead to allergic or asthmatic reactions.  An introduction to synthetic fragrances with more info can be found at the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.  These fragrances wash down into the water supply and are harmful to the ecosystem.

In the past I used a variety of unscented powdered detergent from Arm and Hammer.  I alternated using it with soap nuts and soapwort root. I still use soapwort and soap nuts together in a mesh bag for very lightly soiled laundry, like sheets or towels, quilts, and darker colored items. I have found that you need to use the soapwort roots together with soap nuts otherwise whites will come out very dull looking.  

If you have children who like to get very messy or if you have diapers to wash, you probably won't find soapnuts and soapwort very satisfying.   But you might like this homemade laundry soap recipe from the Family Homestead.  I suggest following this recipe precisely, as it is not particularly forgiving to modifications.  

Lavender Lemongrass Hard Hand soap by AquarianBath

Homemade Laundry Soap 

1/3 bar of soap (We use about 2 oz of a hard hand soap)

½ cup washing soda

½ cup borax powder 

~You will also need a small bucket, about 2 gallon size

Grate the soap and put it in a large pot.  Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts.  Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved.  Remove from heat.  Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket.   Add the soap mixture and stir.  Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir.  Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel.   Use 1/2 cup per load. 

You can also add a few drops of a deodorizing essential oil to the batch such as lemon, orange, cinnamon, or use Lavender essential oil.  Stir up the solution before using it each time as it will separate.  Do not use more than 1/2 cup per load or you may find the solution will fade out your colored fabrics.  Sometimes I will add a drop or 2 of essential oil to the load if there is anything stinky in the laundry.  This laundry soap is not a magic bullet for soiled items that need pre-treatment to prevent stains, but it does the job for regular loads.

I am a big fan of line drying laundry to save energy.  However when it is raining out or when I want to soften up the laundry, I like using felted wool dryer balls.  The balls bounce around in the dryer to help soften up laundry that has been out on the line.  They also eliminate static.  These dryer balls are from Bog Berry Dryer Balls.  Brooke provided these to me to review under no obligation.  They are very effective and I love the colors.  They came in a handy drawstring tote, perfect for travel to a laundry mat. These dryer balls are made from local wool.  

I like to add up to 4 drops of my Lemon essential oil to one dryer ball to deodorized any loads that need a little extra freshening.  The essential oil comes in handy for drying diapers, loads left in the washing machine a bit too long,  kitchen rags, or potty training clean up rags.  It feels good to know that the deodorizing essential oils, my favorite being lemon, actually help to remove odors instead of just masking them in the way that chemical fragrances do. 

With these natural and chemical fragrance free laundering options, is there any other pollutant in our wash that we need to look out for?   Nov 1, 2011 researchers concluded in an article published in Environmental Science and Technology that laundering of synthetic fabrics such as polyester and acrylic were contributing to microplastic pollution.  These microplastics are contaminating beaches and working their way up the food chain.  Even worse microplastics have been shown to absorb toxic chemicals such as PCBs, DDT, and dioxins.  Learn more in this article at Ecocoture.  Shop with ecologically safe laundering in mind.  Choose cottons, linen, hemp, or wool.  Skip the polyfleece.  

4 New Shampoo Bars by Aquarian Bath and How to Use a Shampoo Bar

Coffee Butter Shampoo Bar Vegan Jojoba Formula

I am pleased to announce 4 new shampoo bars from Aquarian Bath made with a slightly modified formula which includes Pesticide Free Golden Jojoba. The formula is nearly the same as my original vegan Aloe Shampoo Bar, but it has Golden Jojoba included instead of Aloe. The difference in feel for your hair is slightly more smoothing, softening, and straightening. The Aloe Shampoo bars tend to give my hair more volume and bounce. Don't worry, I will continue making my Aloe Shampoo Bars for those who love that formula.

My coffee shampoo bar is sure to be a hit. It was made with my new vegan jojoba formulation slightly modified to include highly aromatic coffee butter and a strong coffee brew rather than standard water. These coffee shampoo bars have a light coffee scent.

If you have been waiting for an unscented shampoo bar or have been wanted to try a smaller sized shampoo bar to start, you can now try my Henna infused Shampoo Bar rounds. I have a small number of these bars in stock at the moment. I haven't decided if I will stick with rounds or make regular rectangles with the next batch. What do you think? Do you like round soaps?

Henna Shampoo Bar Vegan Jojoba Formulation

My next shampoo bar isn't vegan but it is the same formula with the addition of Tea Tree and Eucalyptus essential oil together with silk protein and honey. The silk gives the an even greater smoothing quality to the shampoo bar. This bar smells wonderfully herbaceous and refreshing.

Silk-N-Honey Tea Tree Eucalyptus Shampoo Bar with Jojoba

Lastly I have created a fun shampoo bar for the Beer lovers with Guinness Extra Stout. This shampoo bar is unscented. This bar was made with the same vegan jojoba formula, but it contains slightly less free oil compared to the other vegan jojoba shampoo bars. So this might be a good choice for you if you hair tends to normal with a slight tendency towards oiliness.

Extra Stout Vegan Jojoba Shampoo Bar made with North American Guinness Extra Stout. This bar is slightly less conditioning compared to my other vegan jojoba shampoo bars

How does one wash with a shampoo bar?

I wrote previously about transitioning to shampoo bars and a simple treatment to give your hair a fresh start, but what about the basics? Washing with a shampoo bar is pretty simple. First you wet your hair thoroughly, the rub the shampoo bar in a few a patches in your hair. Then work up the lather with your hands. Make sure the lather is worked in through all of your hair and down to your scalp in order give your hair a complete cleaning. Then rinse your hair with fresh water making sure to get out all the shampoo. Rinsing your hair with bath tub water that already has soap mixed in with it will not give you a clean rinse. I wash with my shampoo bars every 2 to 3 days, or more often if I have been getting dirty in the garden or have been working out strenuously.

How to Give Your Hair a Fresh Start or Transitioning to Shampoo Bars

Something that I like to do for my hair once a year or so is a vinegar hair rinse. A vinegar hair rinse is a conditioning treatment suitable for hair that has not been chemically colored. Henna-colored hair is fine. A vinegar rinse helps to remove build up from shampoo and other hair care products, and helps smooth and slightly straighten the hair. I like the bounce that my hair gets from using my bar shampoos, but I recently gave my hair a treatment in between testing new shampoo bar formulas. It was a bit over due, the last time I did it was over 2 years ago. During that time I had been testing a few new shampoo bar formulas, so it was nice to have a fresh start. I suggested this treatment to a customer who was new to shampoo bars and was having trouble with the transition. She really liked the result and I have been meaning to share it. I hope if you try it you like the results. It is very simple:

Mix 2 Tablespoons of Vinegar (Apple Cider Vinegar is best) with 2 cups of warm water. Wet the hair completely in the shower, then pour the rinse completely through the hair. Allow it to sit on the hair for a couple minutes and then rinse with fresh water.

You can have more fun by making an infused herbal vinegar like the one pictured by HerbalMother.com.

Enjoy!
Cory Trusty
http://aquarianbath.com

Weekend Production Streak: New Veggie Soaps, Balms & Perfumes

I had an extra looong weekend which started on Wednesday. It was so nice to be home working on restocking and making new products. First here is a little peak of what is put up to cure for December. The white soap at the top of the blog is a Lavender essential oil veggie soap. I used the same veggie oil formula that I use for my pumpkin poppy seed soap. That soap has a lot of repeat purchases and raves about it's very creamy and bubbly lather. So I decided it was time to make a few more soaps with this oil combo. Yesterday I also made a batch of veggie patchouli soap. I just cut it this morning. It has a pretty in the pot swirl made with cocoa powder as a contrasting natural colorant.


Rosemary mint was the second batch that I made yesterday. I decided to practice my bicolor layering, because I had a special request for 100 bilayer soaps over the weekend. Most of these green clay top layer soaps were perfect, but a couple like this one had a little dip into the white. Good thing I had a practice run. It's been a little while since I've made layered soaps.


Okay enough of what is curing and not ready to ship. I also made and listed some lip balms and perfumes over my long weekend. I was getting low on Sweet Orange and Licorice lip balms, so those are back in stock. Also brand new I have a Lavender Sweet Orange Lip balm. This is my first vegan lip balm made with Candelilla wax instead of Beeswax.


In the perfume department I added a single note Jasmine sambac perfume to the mix. It is strongly aromatic and long lasting.


A couple of more perfumes I actually added last week but haven't posted about yet, so I will mention them as well. The first is a single note Fine French Lavender essential oil roll on Perfume. The highly volatile Lavender is anchored with a small amount of vanilla-like Benzoin.


The second is a Spearmint roll on perfume also with Benzoin. The natural green comes from herbal Isatis tinctoria powder and alfalfa.


Lastly this beautiful Mandarin perfume is colored naturally with annatto seed and is a blend of Mandarin, Sweet Orange, Litsea, and Patchouli essential oils.

Delicate Little Beauties: My First Moringa Flowers

This is my second year growing Moringa oleifera trees, but the first year they have bloomed. If you are not familiar with Moringa, it is a highly nutritive tree, which has the highest protein concentration of any known plant. It is also very easy to digest. Since they did not bloom last year and I was harvesting a good amount of leaves I decided to just let them go over the summer and see if we got any flowers. So here are the first blooms from one of the trees at the Fair Share Garden. I am hoping that we will end up with many seeds to share. All parts of the plant have a variety of culinary and medicinal uses. The most interesting use I have found though is water purification using the seeds. In Natural Medicine in the Tropics Treatments Dr. Hans Martin Hirt gives a complete method for river water purification. About 10 crushed seeds (2 grams of seed) is needed to purify 20 litres of water. The Moringa seed binds the fine particles and bacteria and removes 90- 99.9% of bacteria. The purification can actually be done also with seed that has already been pressed for its oil. Moringa oil has a long shelf life and can be used in cooking, soap making, and as a base for cosmetics.

Inspiration for my Yin Ylang Soap

This soap is inspired by the Taoist Yin Yang symbol and the theory it represents. Yin Yang theory is at the heart of Traditional Chinese medicine, which is one of my areas of training. This theory is essential in understanding physiology, pathology, pattern diagnosis and treatment in Chinese medicine. Yin qualities, to name a few, include passivity, slowness, and coldness, whereas yang qualities include activity, fast movements, and heat. The back of the body is considered Yang, while the front of the body is considered Yin. Patterns of disharmony are characterized as either Yin or Yang in nature. For example, a Yin disharmony would be indigestion accompanied by bloating and runny nose, which is relieved by warming herbal teas such as ginger. Insomnia with night sweats is a good example of a Yang pattern of disharmony, which would be treated with cooling or heat clearing herbs which are Yin in nature.

My Yin Ylang soap was made by the cold process method and colored with activated charcoal. It includes an exotic blend of therapeutic grade essential oils including the Ylang Ylang Extra (high grade), Lemon, Cedarwood, and Clove essential oil.

For those of you who are interested, these are the 4 tenets of Yin Yang theory as described in Wikipedia:

Yin yang are opposing Yin yang describe opposing qualities in phenomena. For instance, winter is yin to summer's yang over the course of a year, and femininity is yin to masculinity's yang in human relationships. It is impossible to talk about yin or yang without some reference to the opposite.

Yin yang are rooted together Since yin and yang are created together in a single movement, they are bound together as parts of a mutual whole. A race with only men or only women would disappear in a single generation, but men and women together create new generations that allow the race they mutually create (and mutually come from) to survive.The interaction of the two gives birth to things.

Yin yang transform each other Like an undertow in the ocean, every advance is complemented by a retreat, and every rise transforms into a fall. Thus, a seed will sprout from the earth and grow upwards towards the sky - an intrinsically yang movement. Then when it reaches its full height, it will begin to weaken, and eventually will fall back to the earth in decay - an intrinsically yin movement.

Yin always contains the potential for yang, and yang for yin. Yin-yang are balanced Yin-yang is a dynamic equilibrium. Because they arise together they are always equal: if one disappears, the other must disappear as well, leaving emptiness. This is rarely immediately apparent, though, because yang elements are clear and obvious while yin elements are hidden and subtle.