How to Make Your Own Soap: All-Natural Castile Olive Oil Bar Soap Recipe

I never – and I do mean never – expected I would be making my own soap. I always assumed the ingredients were too caustic, the process too difficult, and the whole shebang just too darn hard.

Thankfully, I was quite wrong.

DIY Lavender-Rosemary Laundry Detergent (How to Make an Effective All-Natural Laundry Powder)

Ah, laundry. Probably even more difficult to crack than the dishwasher detergent, personal care products, or food has been the detoxification of our laundry detergent.

For a long time I used the “green” products found readily in the grocery store, though with a bit of research, it became clear who was greenwashing and who was not… and all for a very pretty penny. (Those “natural,” store-bought solutions never come cheap!)

Eureka: DIY Dishwasher Detergent… a new and improved recipe!

Over the holidays, I managed to finally put together a batch of homemade dishwasher detergent that works perfectly with my new dishwasher!

As you may have already read, the old version worked great with my old washer… but every machine is different, and so I had to come up with a slightly altered formula to yield better performance now that our kitchen remodel is complete.

DIY Lemon-Eucalyptus Dishwasher Detergent… aka THE SAGA

One of the first things we wanted to tackle when we started to de-toxify our home was dishwasher detergent. It’s the item we’re most likely to consume, we use it every single day, and the list of ingredients on most brands is filled with things I cannot pronounce.

“How hard can it be?” we thought. And therein lies what has probably been the greatest saga in our household toward finding a green, chemical-free solution that works as well as the brands we were trying to replace.

Black Olive and Spinach Calzones with Homemade Ricotta Cheese + Jalapeno Basil Walnut Pesto

It’s sort of difficult, the first time you make homemade ricotta cheese, not to simply devour it all before you’ve actually had a chance to use it in any sort of productive way. (And that’s ok! Have at it. It’s lovely with a bit of honey, smeared over a bagel with some homemade jam… you really can’t go wrong however you want to enjoy it.)

Homemade Ricotta Cheese (the Delicious Made Possible!)

The shift from “What should I buy?” to “What can I make?” has been, for me, a slow but subtle one. It’s almost like learning  a new habit and then practicing it – over and over (and over) – until it becomes unconsciously ingrained into the sometimes automatic process of consumption and acquisition.

Being more mindful of what I use, buy, consume, etc. has helped tremendously… as have resources that abound nowadays focusing on sustainability, self-sufficiency, and frugal living.

DIY Foaming Hand Soap: Natural Peppermint-Lavender-Lemon Foaming Hand Soap

I don’t know why I never questioned whether or not I could make hand soap. I suppose because I thought soap-making was too difficult and that the products out there that are labeled “green” were adequately safe.

After scouring through EWG’s Skin Deep database, I decided it was going to be cheaper, safer, and better for the planet for me to make my own. Nice that all those things happened to align!

This recipe is so simple and effective, I will never go back to buying hand soap again. Truly never. It’s softer than the store-bought brands, smells amazing, and is quick and painless to throw together.

Raspberry Rosemary Lemon Refrigerator or Freezer Jam

Early on in my quest to go greener… my mother sent me several links to refrigerator and freezer jams (they are the same thing, just stored different ways). Apparently, my Aunt Lula used to make them all the time – and my mother thought I would enjoy learning the process.

In our DIY-fervor, Andy and I planted LOTS of fruit this year in the hopes we can eventually use our own garden to cover most of our fruit-eating (particularly in the summer). Among the many new plantings in our garden are three different raspberry varieties (purple, red, and yellow).

DIY Dishwasher Rinse Aid Recipe: How to Make Your Own Citrus Vinegar

Figuring out how to de-chemical-ize our automatic dishwasher detergent has been one of the most difficult transitions thus far. In some ways, personal care products are so much easier to finagle. And it’s very easy to go more natural for hand-washing (I’ll post more on that another time)… but the automatic dishwasher has driven us a bit nuts.

Later in the week, I’ll give you the actual saga of our search for an effective detergent, but today I wanted to focus on a great rinse aid trick.

DIY Face Wash Recipe: Homemade Peppermint-Honey Face Wash (Natural + Exfoliating!)

As I mentioned yesterday, my husband (Andy) and I decided to do our best to go chemical-free after watching the documentary Chemerical. It opened our eyes to the number of crazy chemicals in our cleaning and personal care products… and upon doing further research via the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep database, we were determined to go a more natural route.

Now, Andy had been a long-time “apricot” face wash user and desperately wanted something that would still do the scrubbing duty of his favorite brand. Luckily, I was able to combine an amazing recipe I found at One Good Thing by Jillee (who had originally found it at Towards Sustainability)… and an idea that came to me after reading several body wash recipes that used cornmeal for grit.