Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Homemade Fabric Softener

Homemade Fabric Softener

We make this Fabric softener and use it in our HE type front loader washing machine. It would be good for top loaders as well.

Use a gallon bottle, (I like the Lucky Leaf apple juice jug, or the jug that white vinegar comes in as they are heavy duty. You will be buying the white vinegar anyway and these type of jugs are quite heavy duty). Place the jug in the sink or som...
eplace where water will not cause a problem. You need the following ingredients: READ EVERYTHING 1ST PLEASE!

(You can look in the cleaning isle at a store like Wal-Mart or Sam's Club or the like and buy a huge bag of baking soda. I called the Arm and Hammer company myself and asked if it was of food quality. They said as long as it says Drug Facts / Nutrition Facts on the bag you can use it for cleaning AND for baking. Since our package didn't say "Hey! Use this for baking!" I was worried that it wouldn't be eatable ..so I asked! Our bag is Net Wt. 13.5 lbs.
1 cup of Baking Soda
8 cups of water
6 cups of white vinegar
Since Baking Soda and Vinegar are sworn enemies, you need to know that they will produce a LOT of bubbly action! (Hence the sink!)... OR the way in which you assemble the ingredients.
Into the gallon bottle, (I use a funnel for this), place 5 cups of water, (any temp can be used but I find the hotter the better in helping to dissolve the baking soda.), Add the 1 cup of baking soda and place the cap on the bottle. Shake it until the baking soda is dissolved. Next SLOWLY add 1 cup of white vinegar. It MAY bubble and it might not, so go slow and be prepared. Add the remaining 3 cups of water and and the remaining 5 cups of white vinegar. Stir or shake it together. You are diluting the vinegar with the water, so it may not bubble over! I usually let this sit with the cap half open so that the gases from the baking soda / vinegar can be expelled for a day or so. Use about 1 cup per load of wash.
To use you can add this to a Snuggle fabric softener ball, (Wal-Mart has them), or directly into the fabric softener dispenser of your washing machine. For us we found that it made our clothes brighter and the vinegar did act as a softening agent for the clothes. It isn't as great as a fabric softener shet for the static cling so when we took the clothes out of the dryer we sometimes needed to give the clothes a 'snapping' shake to release the static electricity.
Give a shake before using each time. If any crystals develope on the lid you can just brush them off or add them to the softener, it will be fine! Keeps for months at a time!
You can add up to 15 drops of essential oil for smell if you like, or store in an old fabric softener bottle to let it pick up the scent.

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