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Podcast Extra: Homemade Powdered Laundry Detergent

If you are here from the podcast link, WELCOME! Thanks for stopping by Diva’s Laundry Service on the web.

It’s just three basic ingredients:

Zote ( Zee Oh Tee Eee) soap flakes (you can grate a Zote soap bar or buy it pre-flaked) alternately, you can use any kind of laundry soap bar

Super Washing Powder or Borax

Epson Salts

and your favorite essential oil if you have some.

The soap flakes are obviously the main ingredient for cleaning The washing powder or borax is a laundry booster to give your detergent a little more oompf (totally technical term) and the Epson salts help to eliminate odors. A few drops of your favorite essentials oils will leave your laundry smelling wonderful, but not too overwhelming.

In a blender or a food processor, put

1-1/2 cups of washing powder

1/2 half cup of soap flakes

Two tablespoons of Epson salts

and eight to ten drops of your favorite essential oils

Blend all ingredients until they are the consistency of sand. Place in an air-tight container such as a covered bowl or jar and for every ten pounds of laundry, one tablespoon of this detergent will get your laundry nice, clean, and fresh smelling. I use this detergent for all of my clients that request a commercial alternative. I’d recommend forgoing the essential oils for a newborn or if a member of your household has a history of allergies. One batch should cost less than five bucks and will do about thirty-two average loads of laundry.

Thanks for taking the time out to listen to Laundry and Other Mysteries. Stay glued to this website for other laundry tips and hacks.

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Introducing A New Podcast: Laundry and Other Mysteries

Introducing Laundry and Other Mysteries. A pod where we discuss how our guests do their laundry, what they do when the laundry is done, while offering tips for solving some common laundry mysteries to our listeners.

So, I started a podcast! Yep! I’ll bet your ear-holes were not ready to hear that!

I don’t want to give too much away, so I encourage you to follow this link to listen to the trailer and get an idea of what I’m working on, for yourself.

If you are still interested when you have heard it, I encourage you to become a patron of my new podcast at http://Patreon.com/divaslaundryservice so that you can get early access to every episode and even participate in the creative process, if you become a Laundry Hero!

Laundry and Other Mysteries will be available across multiple podcast platforms, so find me on January 6, 2020, wherever you get your favorite podcasts!

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My Zen Is In Laundry

Some folks find their Zen while doing yoga or meditation. Some may golf or take the spa for a massage to find it. I find my Zen in Laundry.

A lot of people find it a nuisance to have to sort and organize their laundry into little piles and determine whether it’s best to wash their clothes in hot or cold water. For them, the quicker the clothes get in the washer, the better; “out of sight, out of mind”. What ends up happening is set-in stains, dingy whites, and some color-bleeding that ends up deteriorating the bright colors and the longevity of every item in the wash. A lot of folks don’t mind that, but I do.

Then there is the nuisance of having to dry the items and determining whether the setting should be very hot in order to dry all the clothes as quickly as possible, or whether or not to separate out certain items for a cooler dryer temp or for air-drying. This is where a lot of the wear and tear happens, deteriorating the laundry even further.

For me, doing laundry is an art-form, of sorts. As I begin the sorting process, I pretreat any stains I see. I have different pretreaters depending on whether the stain is biological (blood, grass, food) or industrial (ink, paint, oil). Depending on how intense the stain is, it could blend onto unstained items, so it’s best to take care of these items before they are thrown together in the wash. It’s long been a source of pride for me to conquer stains, sometimes even old ones, that others didn’t think would ever come out of their clothes.

In order to make sure the clothes that I launder last longer and look their best, I take the time to sort them, first, per manufacturers instructions (clothing tags can be your best friend) and then, by color or type (whites, lights, darks, and delicates).

I try to use bleach, sparingly, because, over time, it breaks down the fibers in even the whitest fabrics, so if there aren’t enough whites to justify their own washer, I will launder them with light color items and use another laundry booster such as a color-safe bleach or an oxygen booster. I will inevitably wash these items in hot water because they are unlikely to bleed into one another. Dark-colored items are always washed in cold water, in case they bleed; nobody wants their favorite white blouse to be transformed into a dingy-grey or pink by accident. Delicates are washed on their own, if possible. If the load is too small, they are laundered with other cold water items or as prescribed by manufacturer instruction.

It is not always a good idea to just throw everything into one dryer and hope for the best. Some items take longer to dry than others and some fabrics won’t last long under the constant heat, so it’s important to not put all of your clothes in one drying basket. Typically, a good rule of thumb is, one dryer per washer, with the exception of delicates: if you can, you should air-dry them. Many modern dryers now have an “air dry” setting, so it won’t hurt your delicates to let them run a cycle to minimize their dampness, at the very least. As for the rest of your clothes, all of your items should be dried on the lowest temperature possible. If you insist on drying them on “high”, then it should be for the least amount of time possible. It’s likely that if you have clothing items that don’t last beyond 6 months or a year, it’s due to continuous cycles on too high a dryer setting.

Of course, some of my favorite moments of Laundry Zen come with the folding of the laundry. It’s time for me to solve all the world’s problems, in my head, while I also solve the mystery of how to match 15 pairs of black socks that are mismatched in size and shape, despite having other matching characteristics.

For the most part, matching socks is usually very easy, but one of my most favorite things is shirt, sheet, and towel folding. Maybe it’s growing up, as a military brat, but I take great pride in creating sharp points in my folds, so I know that when the item is unfurled it will be mostly, if not entirely, wrinkle-free.

The last step is packing it all away and taking pride in the effort it took to obtain the finished product. Knowing that, because I took the time to pretreat, sort, and properly wash, dry, and fold the laundry in my care, that it will look better and last longer for the people it belongs to. My best moment of Zen is when my family or my clients are pleased with how nice their laundry turns out, making every step along the way worthwhile.

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Hope Is The Root: E-Book Inspired by The Resistance

Blog Exclusive! Use the code UH98D at checkout for discounted copy! (Offer good through April 20, 2018)

Check Out A Sample! (Link)

Resistance has a long and storied history as part of the DNA of the United States, starting from before its birth and through other transitional periods for the country, including, but certainly not limited to, the Civil Rights Movement and the LGBT Movement.

A registered Independent, now, I got my start doing any kind of protesting or resisting as a registered and active member of the Libertarian Party, during the early part of the second Iraq War in 2003. I was married to a member of the US Army and felt compelled to protest and speak up, not just for myself, or my kids, but for my soldier, who could not speak for himself when he was in uniform.

My marriage didn’t last, but my desire to protest oppressive government policies never went away. I began my original DizzyDayz blog to speak up against the Iraq War, but I also spoke up about gay rights, abortion rights, and other civil rights. I took some time off from blogging politics for a few years until the election of the 45th president of the United States.

I did not vote for him and I did not consider him a good leader. I didn’t consider the people whom he nominated for cabinet positions were good leaders, either. Like our 45th president, most of them had never served in any kind of government positions and few, if any of them, were a good fit for the positions they were appointed to. I felt uneasy, feeling like our government was up for sale to our president’s cronies; none of them with the best interests of the American people, in mind.

As this book is published, one year after the inauguration of our 45th president, my fears have been borne out. A number of this administrations staff have either been fired or quit and some of them have been indicted. The ones who are left behind are doing everything they can to wring every dollar they can from their positions or are doing everything they can, it seems, to make life more difficult for the average American. I won’t bother to list the number of other scams and scandals that this administration is involved in, because the list is just too long.

While this administration has been hard at work trying to evict or restrict immigrants, make it harder for people to access healthcare or other government benefits, neglecting states and their citizens; suffering from natural disasters, selling off public lands, antagonizing foreign allies and embracing US adversaries, and trying to rewrite history by pushing alternative facts and fake news, the Republican wing of the legislative branch has been helping this administration rob American citizens of what was once considered “The American Dream.”

With the Democratic Party being the minority and with the Republicans and the president refusing to even attempt bipartisanship, many Americans have felt the need to band together, protesting, marching, and resisting the actions and the policies that this administration continues to try to force us to accept.

Many people in The Resistance have talents that they have offered in support of the hard work ahead, including organizing marches and protests, writing blogs and sending in letters to the editor to their local paper, working on political campaigns, speaking out through media appearances, news articles, and social media. I found, for myself, that writing poetry was my best way of expressing my disdain for this administration and the current legislature.

My platform is much smaller now than it was in 2009 when I last blogged about politics, but my fighting spirit has gotten stronger. Since our 45th president took office, so many civil rights that we have taken for granted are continually under fire, including, but not limited to, rights for gay and transgendered Americans, abortion rights, and access to affordable healthcare, not to mention the security of non-citizen immigrants, whether they are documented or not. I feel compelled to write, almost daily, about every affront to true American values that this president and this legislature continue to impose on the American people.

This anthology of poems is a collection of poems that I wrote for The Resistance; to express my dismay for this administration and other government officials and, also to show support for and motivate members of the online Resistance movement.

My voice is but a small peep in a large crowd of voices trying to be heard; trying to express their desire for a president who serves ALL the people, not just the rich and for a legislature that chooses “country over party”, rather than the other way around. As tragic as life sometimes feels with our 45th president at the helm, I find comfort connecting with others who believe that the United States can still be better and do better, if we all stand together against the continued slights of the current administration and fight against the oppressive and sometimes, unconstitutional, laws that the legislature tries to impose on us.

I am proud to say that The Resistance has helped clapback and pushback against many of the foul policies implemented or attempted by our current government and we have had some victories; some small, some big. I believe if we continue to stand together; make our voices heard by marching, protesting, writing, and voting, we will eventually overcome the current threat to our American values.

Hope is the root of The Resistance; hope in the present and in the future. Through this book and through my continued writing of Resistance poetry, I plan to keep watering those roots, to help bring forward a brighter future for my fellow Americans, our children and our communities, at home and abroad.

Keep Hope Alive. Keep On Resisting!

I Would Be Delighted If You Checked Out The Following Links:

Read My #Resistance Poetry

Find Something Inspirational in My Novelty Shop

Find Crafty Gifts For The Creative Shopper

Buy Me A Cup of Coffee

Hope Is The Root: Poetry Inspired By The Resistance

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