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In my quest of all things homemade I have done quite a bit in the last couple of months, as many of my followers already know. I have been making my own laundry soap, butter, cream cheese, yogurt and more! I have a long list of new things to try as I work to meet my New Year’s resolution of making 85% of our the stuff we use. This includes cleaning products, beauty products as well as food (vinegars, salad dressings, condiments) My most recent experiment has been homemade dishwashing detergent discs which I will share in this post.

1 cup of Super Washing Soda
1 cup of Borax
1/2 cup of Epsom Salts
Zest from lemon
Lemon Juice
Water

The recipe is very easy, you pretty much just mix up the contents. Add the water slowly and just a bit at a time. You just want to make the mixture so that it sticks together to form the pellets. You can use a plastic glove or a plastic baggie when you press down the concoction to mold into the ice tray to make squares. Then you just place out in the sun for a couple of days to let it dry up and harden. Once that is done you can pop out your discs and store in a plastic bag or container and use accordingly.

You can always increase this recipe so that you have to make it less often, I had two babyhood/ice trays  and only wanted to make enough to fill them (24 discs). I’ve also read where you can just leave this recipe in powder form (without water) and just add a tablespoon to the dishwasher per load. I’ve used them for a couple of loads and I think it works well. Everything looks clean and there is no soap residue leftover on the dishes. Im loving that I can buy one box of Borax and 1 for Super Washing Soda and can use it for 2 months of laundry and now loads of dishes (and still have some leftover!) How exciting! I really get so much satisfaction out of making my own stuff, it does take a little extra time and effort, I will admit. But to me it is so worth it, knowing that I am avoiding toxic additives and chemicals and from what I have noticed I haven’t had to compromise much in terms of quality, which has been a problem with a lot of natural products I have used before.

I would love to hear of any natural dishwashing detergent recipes you have tried!