Zero Waste Cleaning: How to make Dish-soap
When cutting down on waste and embracing a greener life, Zero Waste cleaning plays a big part. But why have we switched away, as a society, from natural and eco-friendly options? Why the general idea is that natural solutions don’t work… You guessed right, marketing!
The industry of cleaning product hit $600 million in 2014, and has been growing since then. Every year, we see new ads offering al keep providing customers with more and more specific type of cleaning products, increasing the needs, the purchases and… the un-necessary bull**** if you’ll excuse my French.
Money is not the only thing affected, those products are filled with harmful chemicals that pollute your indoor air and can cause asthma among other health issues. They then contaminate our kitchen counters, our bathroom, etc. We really appreciate EWG work on analyzing thousands of products to provide with worse and best options out there. This being said, one last issue with buying industrial products is the hight price of “eco-friendly” products and their packaging.
As we know, plastic waste has become an increasingly problem in our world. It has been estimated that with the equivalent of a truck filled with plastic is dumped in the ocean every minute! No matter how natural your cleaning products are, they still come in plastic containers that will end up in a landfill or in the ocean.
So many reason to start making our cleaning products ourselves. Today I wanted to share with you how to make your own dish soap and cut the waste around it off of your life. Ready?
How to make Your Own Eco-Friendly Dish-soap
Ingredients
A Container (Use your old container ( like we do) if it was an eco-friendly brand but I don’t recommend using bottle that contained harsh chemicals) If you need to get a new one here’s a link to a great option.
2 Cups of Boiling Water
3/4 Cup of Liquid Castile Soap – Link to Get It
1/4 Cup of Grated Soap – Link here
1/4 cup of Washing Soda – Link here
20 drops of essential oil like Tea Tree for its antiseptic properties and mix it with Mint or Citrus oils like lemon or sweet orange. (optional)
Preparation
Boil your water in a pan, when it starts to boil reduce a little the heat and add you grated soap and washing soda, mix well. Stop the heat and then add you liquid soap. Keep steering. When your preparation starts to cool down add the essential oils and 2 table spoon of aloe vera and/or glycerin. I have a lot of aloe vera and so I add some for our sensitive skin. You can also add some vegetable glycerin to give more consistence to your soap. Keep mixing as your preparation cools down to avoid lumps. When it has cooled, I recommend using a colander to poor your dish soap in your container and voila! Your dish soap is ready to use.
Tips: Once your comfortable with your recipe, I suggest you multiply the quantities and make a batch so you have enough for several months.
Let me know if you liked the recipe and if you have any improvements you’d like to suggest by dropping a comment below. We always appreciate new inputs to perfect our greener life! Finally, don’t hesitate to share this recipe if you find it useful!
