I've been making my own laundry detergent for years. A while back I switched to borax for washing my hands and kept it right there on the kitchen sink. And every single time I reached past that borax for the store-bought dish soap, I thought the same thing: that's probably next.
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I just never quite got there. Not because it seemed hard. More because the timing never presented itself the way it needed to. I knew it was coming. I even bought the dispenser ahead of time because that's how I operate. When I know something's on the list, I'll go ahead and get whatever I'm missing so that when the moment shows up, I'm not scrambling. The dispenser sat there waiting, and I kept reaching for the store-bought bottle.
Then I ran out.
And I thought, well... there it is.
The thing that I love about this recipe is every single ingredient is pulling its weight. Liquid castile soap is the base, plant-derived and free of the synthetic surfactants that conventional dish soap is loaded with. Washing soda is what gives it real degreasing power, the kind that handles cast iron residue and baked-on anything without flinching. Filtered or distilled water keeps everything stable and plays nice with the washing soda so you don't end up with a curdled mess in your dispenser. I used filtered water straight from my sink and it worked perfectly. Lemongrass essential oil adds another layer of grease-cutting support and smells like something that actually belongs near a kitchen sink. Tea tree essential oil brings antimicrobial properties to the party. Everything in that bottle is there for a reason.
The longest part of the whole process was waiting for the water at my sink to warm up. I needed warm water to dissolve the washing soda first, and even with filtered water straight from the tap it takes a minute to get there. That was it. That was the delay. Once that was done I had everything mixed, in the dispenser, and ready to use in about two minutes. It takes me longer to warm up my car.
Now about that dispenser. My kitchen is essentially black and white, which I love, but it doesn't leave a lot of room for personality on the counter. When I was looking at dispensers I saw every option imaginable, and I decided that if something was going to sit on my sink every single day I was going to like looking at it. I found a green ribbed glass dispenser with a black pump and that was the one. It sits on my black counter against white subway tile and it looks like it was always supposed to be there. Function first, but never ugly if I can help it.
I've been making my own laundry detergent long enough that I don't think twice about it anymore. The borax on the sink felt like that same shift, just for handwashing. (Check out the field notes on how to make laundry detergent and how I use borax) This is the next one. And I'll be honest, once the store-bought bottle was gone and I had something I made myself sitting there instead, it felt exactly like those other two felt. A little bit like, why did I wait so long.
I'm not trying to overhaul everything at once. That's a recipe for doing nothing. I just look for the next obvious thing, and when the timing shows up, I take it. The dish soap finally made its move when I ran out, and now I've got ingredients on hand that I'll never run out of because they're all things I keep stocked anyway. When this batch is gone I won't go to the store. I walk to my cabinet, and it takes me two minutes.
That's the whole idea.
From The Field: When what you make yourself works just as well and takes less time than a trip to the store, there's really no reason to go back.