Home-made Laundry & Dishwashing Powders - All BORAX FREE

I decided it was about time that i had a go at making some laundry powder and dishwasher powder.  I think i remember making this goal in January, but at least i got it done before the year is out! I was determined not to let it roll over into 2014, as a job left un-done. 

The cost of living is going up and who really knows what they put in these products that we use everyday in our homes, around our children, so i figured why not try to cut unnecessary costs at the same time and remove some unnecessary toxins from our home. 

So i got to and i found some on-line recipes - many of which had borax as the main ingredient.  I chose not to use borax in mine, so my search continued and the ones i liked the best were these ones.  

http://www.notsomodern.com/2013/02/borax-free-powdered-laundry-detergent.html 
http://myhealthygreenfamily.com/blog/wordpress/homemade-borax-free-dishwasher-detergent-with-secret-ingredient/

Recipes from above sites:

Laundry Powder - Borax Free

1 1/2 cup baking soda                                  (500gm, used 330gm)
1 1/2 cup washing soda                                (1kg, used 360gm)
1/2 cup epson salts                                      (1kg, used 110gm)
2 tbsp cource rock salt                                  (1 kg, i used maybe 5gm)
A few drops of tea tree oil which i had already

I put all the ingredients in a large container and shook them up.  Using a large container give the ingredients plenty of room to mix.  Then i just stored it in that container.

The cost of this mix worked out to be $3.82.  The recipe says you get 58 loads out of it, which works out to be $0.7 per load.  Compared to Surf at $0.14 and Aldi's Alamat of $0.13 per load.  This works out to be almost half of what you would pay at aldi!! Not to mention fewer chemicals.

Dishwashing powder - Borax free

2 cups washing powder                            (1kg, i used 480gm)
1/2 citric acid                                          (2x75g = 140, i used 115gm)
1/2 cup rock salt                                     (1kg, i used 130gm)

I put all the ingredients in a large container and shook them up.  Using a large container give the ingredients plenty of room to mix.  Then i just stored it in that container.

The cost of this mix worked out to be $5.13.  I measured it out and i would get 22 washes out of this batch, keeping in mind though that i havent used it in the dishwasher to see how effective it is, so i might get more or less out of this mix. I compared this with Aldi's Logix dishwasher tablets which is $0.25 per wash/tab. There is a $0.2c saving per load which (assuming you get 22 loads) would work out to be  only a $0.44 saving.  This is a perfect case where you have to decide if you are willing to pay the extra $0.44 and buy it off the shelf, or if you want to know that the products within your home are safe and non-toxic.

PS: i got all my ingredients from woolworths to save some time in shopping around. 

PPS: i also havent tried my new supplies out yet, so its unforseen as to if they are effective or not.