Estrogen Dominance and Homemade Laundry Detergent

One of our current adventures has to do with my own health. For many years, I've been watching over the health of my husband, children and animals, as with most busy moms, and forgetting to really pay much attention to mine. When the signs of estrogen dominance (allopathically known as menopause) started to get beyond the point of annoyance, I had to do something. The first thing was to start avoiding estrogenic compounds both natural and synthetic. Estrogen dominant or not, the great money saving idea I found thanks to it, will help everyone.

My research led me to many good resources including Dr. Lee, author of such books as "What your Doctor May not Tell You About Menopause," "Dr. Lee's Hormone Balance Made Simple," and other relevant books. All of which can be found on this Books For Sale page. More good resources were from Dr. William Eckhart, and the USP Progesterone product "Progestelle" site. There are some other good sources out there, like Yahoo Groups message boards dedicated to the cause, Neways progesterone cream distributors, etc. But, those two are my favorites.

In Dr. Eckhart's reply to my medical form, he mentioned that there really is no good, safe, estrogenic compound free laundry detergent with the exception of one he has found that is just too expensive for my budget. So, I decided to research the option of making my own.

I found a recipe, actually several recipes, on the internet. I took the plunge, bought the three required ingredients and whipped up a batch of my own. (Recipe below along with my notes on preparation) I will say I was very happy with the results. After 4 weeks, I've used about 1/2 of my $3 - $4 laundry detergent. A big savings compared to the $12 laundry detergent I bought at the store. The clothes are clean and fresh smelling, and I'm wondering why I didn't do this sooner. The first few loads of laundry the water was absolutely disgusting. I'm guessing the dirt was what my commercial laundry detergent didn't get out. ICK!!!! I rinsed all loads 2 times for probably the first 10 loads. My husband suspects that maybe the new laundry soap was cleaning the washing machine as well. That is possible, since I used to occasionally get grime at the bottom of the tub, and no longer do.

So, for your consideration, here is my first batch notes. I will make the next batch a bit thinner, and am trying to find a perfect container to store it in, so I don't have to use a pail. Didn't take pictures, but when I remake it in a month I will post pictures with an update.

Laundry Soap Recipe – 1^st Batch 1/31/09

2 full bars Kirk’s Castile Soap – shredded (what didn’t shred, I cut into small pieces)

1 Cup Borax

1 Cup A & H Super Washing Soda

8 Cups water

25 drops Grapefruit Seed Extract (a.k.a. GSE -preservative, antibacterial)

(Castile soap can be found in the Health and Beauty section of your local store. Most any pure, bar soap will do. FelsNaptha is the recommended so, but not available near me. Borax and Washing Soda are available in the laundry aisle of your store. They are in boxes, powdered. And the GSE is available at the health food store or at http://www.iherb.com The brand is Nutribiotic, you want the liquid. If you get it from iHerb it is much cheaper, and new customers can use the code KES097 at checkout for $5 of their first order)

First, put shredded soap into 6 cups of water and heated, stirring occasionally until most of the soap had dissolved.

Add soda and borax, stir until dissolved, add two cups water. Continue to heat and stir for another 30 minutes on very low heat.

Removed from heat, added GSE, and let cool, stirring occasionally to mix foam back in.

As soap started to cool, it actually started to solidify instead of just gel as online instructions indicated it should. I had not added as much water as recipe suggested, since I wondered if you could make it more concentrated to take up less space in laundry room. Well, you can’t. Therefore, I added another 8 cups of water and put back on the stove on low heat to reliquify.

Let it reliquify, then added another 8 cups of water after using some of the still warm mixture in cold water wash only to watch it turn into solids in the water. Need to keep it liquid, or dissolve in warm water before switching to cold water for cold water washes.

Still semi solid gel. Will wait until completely cooled to decide whether to add more water or not. It has now been about 6 hours since I started the process.

Finally packaged it up and called it good.

I don't have the perfect packaging system, just a couple of old, plastic ice cream containers. I'll be on the hunt for better packaging, hopefully not plastic!

UPDATE: 3/14/2009 made my second batch and took notes. The first batch lasted our family of 4 on the farm for a little over 1.5 months.

Second Batch notes:

2^nd Batch – 3/14/2009

Basically followed same steps. This time I added more water than before. As liquid would start to steam, I would add 4 more cups. Dissolved initial soap mixture in 8 cups of water, then as it heated, added 4 cups at a time until I got to 24 cups of water. (previous batch was 22 cups of water.) Then started the cooling process.

As it cooled, it started to solidify, so added 4 more cups of water and reheated to combine. Went to check again after 15 minutes and top had solidified, so stirred it up and added 4 more cups of water. Will combine and let cool again.

In the end, I had 32 cups of water. Top hardened, but I stirred it all up when cool and had a loose gel soap.