Why Make Your Own Cleaning Products? February 3, 2008

Seth doesn’t understand why I want to make my own cleaning products.

There’s a number of reasons why.

First of all, it’s better for the environment. Most commercial cleaning products are harmful to our planet.

Their also harmful to us. Why use harsh petrochemical-based cleaners that are full of toxins when there are alternatives?

Another reason is that it saves oil. That’s right, oil.

“If every household in the U.S. replaced just one bottle of 50 oz. ultra petroleum based liquid laundry detergent with our 50 oz. ultra vegetable based product, we could save 113,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 6,500 U.S. homes for a year!”

(According to a Seventh Generation laundry detergent page on Drugstore.com)

Did you know that there was oil in your cleaning products? I didn’t.

I guess some people say they don’t want to make the switch to green cleaners because it’s too expensive. Well, you can throw that argument out the window by learning how to make your own.

It’s not hard, and the savings are substantial.

Here’s the Price Breakdown per Load:

Arm & Hammer - 23 cents per load.
All Small & Mighty - 24 cents a load.
Purex Free & Clean - 24 cents per load.
Gain Original - 30 cents per load.
Cheer Color Guard Free & Gentle - 39 cents per load.
Tide with Downy - 43 cents per load.
Dreft - 45 cents per load.
Original Tide - 46 cents per load.
Seventh Generation - 34 cents per load.

AND…

Homemade powder or liquid - 1-2 cents per load.

(Source)

How much money are we saving? Well, with all our regular laundry plus cloth diapers, we do about 6 loads a week. That’s 312 loads per year.

Here’s our savings per year:

Seventh Generation (34 cents/load) - $106.08
Homemade detergent (1.5 cents per load) - $3.75
Savings - $102.33

And that’s just for laundry detergent. I’m no longer buying Windex, dishwashing detergent, dishwashing liquid, Fantastik, Swiffer (that stuff costs a fortune), Comet, etc. We are using a combination of white vinegar, water, washing soda, Borax, and citric acid for all of the above.

Sure, you still have to make it — but how hard is it to mix up a couple of things? And I’d rather save money on cleaning products — that’s money I can use for more important things, like raw milk and grass-fed beef.

Here are some recipes for laundry detergent:

Homemade Laundry Detergent Recipe

Here’s an even easier recipe for a powder (the one above is a liquid).