Recipes for around the house!!

Hey guys,

I made a post a while back about when I was experimenting with homemade shampoo and deodorant. I also added a recipe that I had for homemade laundry soap. I still love that recipe, by the way, and will never use any other laundry soap. If you missed it you can see that here. 

So after using the shampoo for roughly 6 months, I really love it! I only have to wash my hair about once every 5 days, unless I am doing rough work and stuff falls in my hair. Then I have to wash it more often. It is gentle enough to use everyday, but you really don't need to. Commercial shampoos strip your hair of natural oils, making your glands work overtime. This shampoo cleans your hair, but does not strip the oils completely. This is good. This means that you wash your hair less. This also means that you have to be patient when first starting to use this shampoo. For the first two weeks with this shampoo I still had to wash every day and my hair constantly felt gross and heavy and oily. The second two weeks I graduated from washing daily to every other day, but the second day my hair felt really nasty. The second month, it gradually got better. After that, my hair started to feel normal again, and I just started washing it when it felt dirty. After about 4 months I realized just how long I could go without it feeling dirty. After I rinse the shampoo out, I put apple cider vinegar 'with the mother' mixed with water (1/4c vinegar to 2 cups water- do not use on colored hair! Just use coconut oil.) on my hair to condition it. Once a week I deep condition with unrefined coconut oil. I just put two tablespoons in my hair-starting at the ends and working up to about 3 inches below the roots of my hair- and let sit for 30 minutes before washing. 

Here is the recipe:
Note: I use an 8 oz bottle, so this recipe has the measurements for that.

• Fill bottle 2/3 full with Dr. Bronner's Liquid Castille Soap (I use peppermint, you can use whatever scent you want. My husband uses citrus.)
• Put in about 1 tablespoon of raw honey and 1 teaspoon of vitamin E oil. 
• Put in any additional essential oils you want- do not exceed 10 drops with scented soap, 30 with unscented. 
• Fill the rest of the way with homemade coconut milk. 
• Shake before use. 

Homemade coconut milk:

Put 1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes and 1 cup water in blender. 

Puree for 3 minutes. 

Strain out coconut flakes with several layers of cheese cloth. 

Homemade deodorant was another story. I could not get the recipe right. If I used corn starch I broke out and if I used tapioca flour it always melted! We hated keeping our deodorant in the fridge, so we just went back to regular deodorant.

Side note- Dr Bronner's soap can be used for anything involving cleaning. I also use the peppermint for mopping (hands and knees kind) when I am deep cleaning my dads house. I am amazed at how awesome it is! I can clean the floor twice with the Mr. Clean Liquid Muscle and then when I use Dr Bronner's more dirt still comes up! 

Last thing of the day: Homemade "Swiffer" wet pads

Needed: 

2 rolls Bounty Basic paper towels (or any 2 ply paper towels that are NOT select a size) 

Floor cleaner (I use Mr Clean Liquid Muscle)

White vinegar

Baking soda

Warm Water 

Something to store in- old swiffer wet pad containers or Sun washing powder bucket w lid

5 gallon bucket

1. Rip off paper towels in sets of 3. So 3 paper towels are connected.

2. Fold those 3 paper towels at the seams. So you will have a pad that is the size of a paper towel, that has 3 layers. 

3. Fold each one in half and put in storage container. If using old swiffer containers, you will probably need 4-6.

4. In a 5 gallon bucket, put in 1/2 c floor cleaner, 1/2 c white vinegar, and 4 tablespoons baking soda. Add about 2 1/2 gallon of warm water. 

5. Pour this cleaning solution over paper towels.

6. After 1 day, pour out excess liquid.

That's it! You can use them right away of course, but after one day you want to pour out the excess liquid so the paper towels don't break down. I find they are best when used within 1 month, so you might want to only make 1 roll of paper towels worth if you won't use 40 in 1 month. 

Mollie