Shower Cleaner

I consider daily shower cleaners to be one of the greatest inventions of the past ten years. No way do I want to go back to scrubbing the shower every week. The down side of buying the product is that I haven't been able to find refills for any brand except Method which stinks, I mean smells, like ylang ylang. It takes quite a bit of it to keep the lime deposits from our water from building up quickly so we were throwing several plastic bottles a month into the recycle bin, sprayer and all.

I have made several attempts to come up with a formula that works, including several containing vinegar (stinky and mildew started growing). None of them worked at all. Research told me that the shower spray products work partially because they contain a sheeting compound. I looked online and could find not source for such a thing. Finally, I found the answer: Jetdry....the stuff you put in the dishwasher to keep the dishes from having hard water spots on them.

I mixed up the following formula which has been working well for about ten days:

Stir 3 tablespoons each borax and washing soda into enough hot water to dissolve them.
Add 3 tablespoons Jetdry (or whatever brand you have on hand)
Pour the mixture into a 32 ounce spray bottle then very slowly fill the bottle with water.
(If you fill it too fast, it will foam up.)

I use the bottle I had left from the last shower cleaner I bought. That way, I know what is in the bottle and don't have to label it.

I'm a Lyer, Illustrated Version

A few months ago I posted about making soap. Here is a more detailed version of the process.


I start by assembling most of the ingredients and the equipment. This takes very little time because I keep most of it organized in this big ol' container in the garage. Note: All pots and mixing bowls as well as stirring spoons must be made of non-reactive material such as glass, enamel ware or stainless steel. I use wooden spoons for stirring but I have two that I use only for soap making. Do NOT use aluminum or cast iron.





Olive, canola and coconut oil plus water and lye are the basic ingredients. They all have to be measured by volume. (I love this scale.) I keep a spray bottle of vinegar handy to neutralize any lye that might get on something that I don't want it to be on.





After carefully measuring out 12 ounces of lye and 24 ounces of water, I take them outside to mix them together. The lye is always added to the water and not the other way around. This prevents any volcanic type eruptions.
I got the bright idea today to use some ice cubes as part of the water. It did not help and caused the lye to bind together and need more stirring.






The solution will turn white and immediately heat up to a little over 150 degrees. The fumes are awful and highly toxic which is why I do this outside. Today it took over an hour for it to cool down to the 100 degrees it needs to be for mixing with the oils. That is because it is over 90 degrees here. When the weather is cooler, it doesn't take quite as long.










While the lye solution is cooling, I measure and mix the oils. This scale allows me to be precise. I can set it back to zero before adding each oil so I don't have to do any math. 36 ounces of olive oil (I went a little over here and took out .35 oz.), 12 ounces of coconut oil and 40 ounces of canola or peanut oil. We save the oil Stephen uses in his deep fryer. It makes great soap. The saponification process gets rid of any rancid smell. Also, I use the cheapest olive oil I can find, although it is all pretty expensive right now. It doesn't have to be EVOO.












Then I decide what fragrance I want to use and mix the essential oils. I don't use any synthetics with the exception of sandalwood which I don't use very often. It is very expensive and it is such a subtle fragrance that it takes a lot of to get any smell at all.


This time I divided the batch and used a mix of lavender, lemon and orange oil in half and and mix of clary sage, rosemary and lavender in about half. I saved about a cup and a half to which I added a few drops of rose absolute.


Then I waited, and waited and waited some more for the lye mixture to cool down to 100 degrees at which time, I heated the oils to 100 degrees so that it could all be mixed together. I like to do this in my sink because this makes height is more comfortable for me to stir it.















Time to get out the boat motor and let 'er rip.









I use the stick blender to mix the oil and lye together. Remember, this is oil and water so it doesn't go together easily. Today, it traced pretty quickly, within 5 minutes. Trace is when the mixture gets thick enough that the mixer starts to make a trail in in and if you drop and drop or two if the mixture on its surface, it makes little dimples that just stay there. When that happens, it is time to mix in the essential oils and pour the soap into the molds. I always use the boat motor to mix in the essential oils just to make sure that they are fully incorporated. Some of them will change the viscosity of the product and make it set up faster or slower. You need to work pretty fast after you mix them into it.

Here it is in my fancy schmancy plastic molds. Until a few months ago, I lined cardboard boxes with wax paper for molds then cut the bars after the soap set up for a few hours. I found these molds on sale and they have made this a little easier. The only catch is that I have to put the molds in the freezer for a few hours in order for them to release the bars. Four weeks from now, it will have saponified (cured) and be ready for use. I test it with ph strips to make sure that is is in the 9ph range but this really isn't necessary. The older the soap, the lower the ph.

This recipe makes a wonderfully soft and fine lather. I have tried adding other oils to it to make a harder bar but the oils separated and the bars look weird. My apologies if I sent you some of the weird looking soap. It works fine. The soap is close to true white unless I add an essential oil such as vanilla which turns it brown or a clay or colorant of some kind to change the color.

Some of the ingredients for making soap are a little hard to find. It seem that lye is used in the manufactoring of meth and other illegal substances. I used to be able to get it in the grocery store and then in hardware stores but now I get it from Texas Natural Supply. You have to sign a waiver stating that you are not using it for illegal purposes or making it available to anyone who is and they will ship it to you just about anywhere in the lower 48. I also get all of my essential oils there. Their prices are great and the quality is very high. It takes quite a bit of essential oil to hold its own with the lye and the saponification process so quality and price are very important.

Soundtrack for this post: Splish Splash by Bobby Darin

Ooey, Gooey Slime

I have been trying to think of ways to reduce the amount of plastic that we bring into the house without being a total fanatic about it. One of the biggest things we have done is buying a crock type water dispenser and some three gallon jugs so that we could stop buying flats of bottled water. Our water, though plentiful, has so many minerals in it that drinking it or cooking with it is not something we are brave enough to do. Getting the dispenser has helped us go from an overflowing recycling bin every week to one that is often nearly empty.

Another thing I do is buy things in glass containers whenever possible. We like a certain brand of spaghetti sauce and pesto that comes in Atlas jars. The great thing about the Atlas jars is that they have standard sized mouths that can be fitted with canning lids. I use them to store everything. I also reuse the jars from our favorite salsa, which are pints and again have the standardized mouths.

I have been looking at the cleaning products I buy. I try to find products for which I can buy refills but those seem to be few and far between. Method brand has a few refillable products and eco-friendy formulas. I love Seventh Generation Products but they are pricey and I have never seen any refills in that line.

I have started investigating making my own cleaning supplies and have had varying results. Our water, as previously stated, is really hard with lots of minerals in it. Baking soda and borax only go so far with scrubbing the salts away. Vinegar will take most of it off but no combination of these three ingredients deals very well with mildew which grows rampantly in our humidity. Some of the things that I have tried to use homemade cleansers on include dishes(a miserable failure), tubs and sinks(if I scrubbed long enough it worked pretty well)and counter tops( moderately successful).

I decided to try making my own laundry soap. I tried this before using some of my own soap that had not yet saponified. Online research said that this would not matter since the resulting product would not be used directly on skin. I mixed up a batch but it never gelled. I did use it for quite a while. However, it eventually took on a sour smell and I threw it out. One day at a local farm and ranch store I found some Fels-Naptha* laundry soap. This is the actual soap called for in most of the laundry soap recipes so I grabbed a bar. I put it up in the cabinet over my washer and forgot about it for a while. The other day I discovered it and decided to try again, since I already had everything else I needed. It turned out perfectly this time. Here is the recipe:

1 bar of soap (Make sure that you have true soap. If whatever you have on hand says
it is a 'bar' but doesn't have the word 'soap' on the label, it is not true soap. Brands that I know of are Ivory, Zote, and Fels-Naptha.)

1 cup of washing soda (Not baking soda.)

1 cup of Borax (Yeah, the 20 Mule Team stuff)

I grated the bar of soap in my food processor. While I was doing that, I started heating a gallon of water. Put the soap in the water and kept it hot, but not boiling, until all the soap had melted. Then, I put 2 gallons plus 5 cups of hot tap water (mine gets about 120 degrees) into a 5 gallon bucket that I had gotten in the paint department of Home Depot. I added the hot soapy water to this and mixed it well. Next, I added the washing soda. I may have used more than a cup because I had just a little left in the box and did not want to save it. I mixed this until it dissolved then added the borax and mixed until it was also dissolved. After that, I put the lid on the bucket and left it alone until the next day. By then, it had formed a yellow(color of the soap) gel that looked like it was pretty solid. I stirred it and found that there was still liquid on the bottom. This is just what I wanted to see.

I have washed about 3 loads of clothes with this and it seems to be working just fine. I turn the washer on and add the gel while it the water is running and before I put the clothes in. (This is a habit that I have had since I was a kid when one of my friends poured a bleach containing detergent directly onto some colored sheets. Not a pretty site.) Since this is soap and not detergent, it will produce few if any suds.

After adding the clothes to the machine, I fill a downy ball to its fill line with vinegar. This makes the soap rinse out easier and prevents build up. I buy a gallon of extra strength vinegar and use it for a lot of things around the house. A gallon lasts me about 3 or 4 months. Even though it comes in a plastic bottle, I don't buy it very often and the plastic is much thinner than the plastic of my regular laundry detergent bottle.




I use about a third to a half cup of this per load and it will most likely last us at least six months. I do have a back up jug of Seventh Generation detergent if I have stains that this won't take out. However, I have found that Citrasolve takes out just about any stain we ever get on our clothes.

I figure that I used about three to four dollars worth of ingredients to make this concoction. A jug of 7th Gen. costs about seven dollars and lasts us a couple of months so I am saving some money here although that is not as big a deal for me as the plastic issue. If I still had a big family and were washing several loads of clothes a day, it would be another matter.

* Fels-Naptha soap contains no naptha.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with any of the products to which I have provided links. I found all my ingredients locally but they are not readily available everywhere. You can buy a kit here that contains everything you need to make your own laundry soap.

Soundtrack for this post: Dolly Parton's Wash Day Blues.

You Asked For It, You Got It

I expereinced a small disaster when my spring form pan sprung a major leak. I probably lost an half to two thirds of a cup of this ambrosia all over the oven. Luckily, most of it got on the cookie sheet that I had placed under the pan and on my baking stone which came from Lowe's and can be cheaply replaced if need be. The cookie sheet and the spring form pan will be replaced today.

I have tasted some of the overflow and it is delicious and worthy of the home made cream cheese.

Update on the Science Experiements

The cream cheese turned out better than I had thought it might. In fact, it is wonderful...sweet and creamy, almost too rich to eat but I think we will manage somehow, just in small amounts. maybe I'll make a cheesecake. That is what someone who lives with me is hoping.

The beans? A total disaster. They not only smelled awful even after rinsing more times than I counted, but after 5 hours of cooking, they were not getting the least bit soft. We put them outside to cool and Stephen threw them over the back fence into the woods.

More Science Experiements

Over the past few months, my kitchen has become a science lab of sorts as I have tried to create more and more of the food we eat from what a lot of people would consider beyond scratch. Some of this has been motivated by reading ingredients on some of the things we use on a regular basis. It has become increasingly hard to find bread that does contain ingredients that I cannot pronounce in addition to high fructose corn syrup. I have had bread in my kitchen that did not go stale for a month. That freaked me out just a little bit. I have been experimenting with baking my own bread and hope to eventually be able to bake all our bread using organic ingredients. The best bread recipe I have found so far has to be started the night before you plan to bake it and then takes a whole day. It may be a while before I can manage to bake all our bread due to time constraints.

In the meantime, the most recent experiment that I have completed was making buttermilk. I have had problems with cornbread and biscuits not having the texture that I have been used to. I have decided that the buttermilk. Remember when the buttermilk you got at the grocery store was thick and creamy? Checked it lately? It is about the same consistency as regular milk and has four or five ingredients listed on the label. Yuck! Buttermilk should contain low fat milk and buttermilk culture. That's all. Of course, originally it was the liquid that was left over from churning butter, but that is no longer available in most areas. I ordered butter milk culture from New England Cheese Making Supply and followed their directions. You just bring low fat milk up to about 80 degrees, mix in the culture and leave it in a thermos overnight. I did not have a thermos so I used one of those big thermal insulated cups that you can get at convenience store in the summer. I put a thick kitchen towel over the lid to keep it a little warmer. In this weather, I probably did not even need the thermos. I most likely could have just left in in a quart jar. It turned out wonderfully. If I liked to drink buttermilk, I am sure that I would have considered it delicious. I have yet to make cornbread or biscuits but I did make a couple of buttermilk pies, one for us and one for our next door neighbors who loaned us a lawn mower with and attachment that picks up leaves. ( This was a huge favor since all those beautiful trees in my previous post are live oaks which lose all their leaves in about two weeks this time of year. We had 3 inches of leaves in some parts of our yard.)

The pies were very tasty and looked pretty good, too.

I have a few on going experiments. I am attempting once again to make cream cheese. I have done this before and always end up with a rather sour product. I have ordered fresh starter and have put the mixture in the refrigerator instead of leaving it out. It may be that I cannot make it without having strict temperature control. It is supposed to be kept at 65 degrees ant that is not going to happen. It will be interesting to see what I have this time tomorrow.

The red wine vinegar is making its 'mother' at such a rate that I have had to remove several layers of it. If anybody wants to start their own vinegar, let me know. I'll try to send you some.

I read on this blog about fermenting beans so of course I had to try it. I soaked the beans night before last in water then changed over to whey last night. I think they will be ready to cook tomorrow.

Soundtrack for this post: Anything by Domestic Science Club

I'm a Lyer

Yep, I just confessed to not always being honest so I may as well come clean.


About six years ago, Stephen said that he had always wanted to try making soap. I had been wanting to try it for years but had been discouraged by a friend who had tried to make part of her living doing it and had told me that you have to had a set of pots and pans that were designated for soap making and that it was a hassle and I don't remember what else. She made it sound like way to much to deal with. However, when Stephen started talking about it, I got on line and started reading up on it. Turns out, you can use any nonreactive cookware that is big enough to hold your soap and any nonreactive vessel to hold your lye solution. After making our first batch, we were addicted to home made soap. It doesn't dry your skin since all the glycerin remains in the soap rather than being milled out like in commercial soap. (Actually, most commercial soap isn't really soap and doesn't claim to be if you read the label.)



Stephen has pretty much lost interest in the making of soap but I have continued to make it. I give away as much as we use. (I have to so that I can keep experimenting. I love working with different combinations of essential oils to come up with new scents.)







Making soap is a process that has to be approached with a certain amount of caution. In order to make true soap, you have to mix fat, water and lye. As the saying goes: no lye, no soap. When the lye and water are mixed together, it puts off noxious fumes while heating up to at least 150 degrees. I always to this outside. Then I mix my oils in my big enamel pot and heat them to 100 degrees just about the time the lye water cools down to 100 degrees. Then I get my trusty stick blender and stir until it traces (this is when it is the consistency of thick pudding and a drop makes an indention when it hits the surface). At this point, I add the essential oils that I have decided to use and pour it into molds. If I have used box molds, I score the soap as soon as it it set enough, usually between three and eight hours. The next morning I turn it out of the molds and set it in cardboard boxes lined with wax paper for about four weeks. By this time it has saponified which means that the acids in the fats have neutralized the alkaline lye and the ph is around 9. Sometimes I use plastic molds to give my bars a prettier shape. In this case, I put them in the freezer the next day and leave them up to 2 hours so that the soap will pop out. Then I put them in the boxes to cure for four weeks. I have a tried and true recipe that has never let me down. This process is known as cold process (CP) soap making and the soap looks something like this:








Today, I tried hot process (HP) for the first time. It was a dismal failure. I screwed up by not putting a lid on the soap while it was in the oven. I used my usual CP recipe as several sites I looked at said I could do but I think that may have been part of the problem. I got a big mess that looked like this after messing with this stuff all day. It looks like this:





It is funky and gunky and illustrates the old adage about home made soap and ugly. I have put it in the garage and will grind part of it up and rebatch it some day when I am really bored. I will try this again with a different recipe and this time, I'll keep a lid on it.




Soundtrack for this post: SS Bathtub, David LaMotte

Cheesy Update

The ricotta turned out fine although there are only a few tablespoons of it. All of the recipes I found called for starting with two gallons of whey. I only had what was left of the gallon of milk after I made the mozzarella yesterday. I had to play around with it as far as the cooking time and the amount of vinegar to add. That's OK. I was mostly playing around with this anyway. I knew that there was a possibility that it would not make cheese at all since I had added citric acid to the milk during the cheese making process yesterday. I could have added milk to the whey and next time, I will.

The hardest part of this whole process is finding milk that has not been ultra pasteurized. This process makes for a long shelf life but kills the bacteria that are necessary for making cheese. I have found it at Wheatsville Co-op and getting there takes about 20 minutes. Hopefully, it will become more widely available soon.

The soundtrack for this post would probably be the theme from the Adam's Family. With the sourdough starter, the vinegar that I am making from red wine and all the cheese and soap making, my kitchen is starting to resemble Uncle Fester’s lab.