We love our Liquid Castile Soap so much we keep a 1/2 gallon by the kitchen sink, in the laundry room and in the bathroom to use as a body wash. Our cool looking Crane pumps measure one perfect ounce every time! Old fashioned goodness complimented by modern technology. Beyond great function our method of dispensing liquid soap is definitely a conversation piece. Everyone wants to know what they are for and what it does! Our Liquid Castile Soap is now available in Pearly Peppermint and Myers Lemon as well. The new lemon has a natural yellow color from lemon essential oil. We find the Peppermint great for bath and body. The Lemon is more for kitchen/laundry use. Right now shipping is FREE when you buy any two half gallons. That is a $10 savings.
This article will provide you with easy and uplifting cleaning methods, recipes and Formulas to lift your spirits while you really go green at home base. *You can use any liquid Castile you can find, although make sure there is olive oil in it and not just all low end vegetable oil components which can be drying to the skin when they constitute 10% of the formula, and they tend to be too watery.
garden soap * castile & pets * mold spray
Cleaning
with essential oils is a non-toxic way to clean
the home while lifting your spirits at the same time!
As shown below, the power and energy of an essential
oil can be delivered through a variety of systems,
alcohol (for disinfecting) and the most common
cleaning medium-good old soap and water. As you
may all be aware, we use our own liquid castile soap
to clean almost everything.
Mabel's Miracle
Liquid Castile Soap is a vegetable based soap made
with 100% olive oil for its gentle nature and
coconut for its lather. It's multipurpose and can be
used as a gentle yet effective, fruit and vegetable
wash, floor & counter cleaner, laundry soap, window
wash, pet shampoo and even straight on the body as the
worlds most gentle cleaner. Made in America, it's
petrol-free, detergent-free, completely biodegradable
with literally hundreds of uses.
*Our
products are never tested on animals, only on
husbands.
Incidentally, bubbles do matter and castile generates beautiful natural soap bubbles. They are not dramatic, fake and uniform as with the chemical laden SLS surfacants. We know 60% of what goes on your skin gets in the blood stream. So go Castile! (Photo: Castile Bubbles.)
Be a Mabel Club Member! Craft Supply Store Aromatherapy a A/U
Cleaning Recipes & Formulas (excerpts from Maid Holistic by Mabel White)
Every formula has a
"base". In this case we are using soapy Castile
water as our base for most cleaning, alcohol 90% or
higher as our disinfectant base, bases such as Borax
(the Mule Team salts), and/or simple items like baking
soda and vinegar. This also saves substantial
money by not having to buy several pricey commercial
products to do the time thing. Some of the commercial
products we buy we do not even use often-so the
overall price is high to you as well as the
environment.
Click here to purchase Liquid Castile Soap & Buy One Get One Free Introductory offer!
Automatic Dishwasher Formula
1/4 Teaspoon of Lemon Liquid Castile Soap
2 heaping tablespoons of citric acid
Put
the 1 Teaspoon of Lemon Liquid Castile Soap in the
soap compartment, and 1 heaping tablespoons of citric
shine (citric acid) tossed in the bottom of the unit. It does not
matter where. The citric shines everything beyond
taking care of the alkaline look when using natural
soaps. Do not use more than 1/4 teaspoon
of Castile Liquid Soap or you will have a kitchen full
of suds. This is not going to work without the
citric so don't even try it. To clean residue
out of a dishwasher-(we recommend once a year) run 1/2
cup of citric acid through a whole cycle with a 1/4
teaspoon of castile and no dishes in it. This usually
will shine your unit. The same principle works
anywhere there is a soap build up, such as bath tubs.
*
For wine glasses-just pump a little into each dirty
glass and let sit over night. I LOVE that pump
because it saves reaching for a heavy jug when I am
already exhausted.
Tags: Castile Automatic Dishwasher Recipe. DYI
Dishwasher Soap.
Laundry – Making Your Own Laundry Soap
You can use Mabel's
Liquid Castile as laundry soap in your 'green
routine'. To clean laundry naturally use ¼ cup of
liquid castile in the wash. You can add scent by
adding it to the soap you are about to use. This
disperses the scent into the soap first and not
directly onto clothes. The lemon scent will not
over ride your choice of scent. Although
uplifting and clean, Lemon is a more "fleeting" scent
is one reason why.
1/4 Cup (2 Ounces) of Mabel's Lemon Liquid Castile Soap
1 Cup of dry Green Laundry Booster (Baking Soda, Borax, Citric Mix)
For serious cleaning power add one cup of a dry booster (baking soda, borax, and citric mix described below). You can add essential oils to the soap about to be used into the soap you poured to wash too! Lavender is a nice choice, Lemon a clean scent, or my favorite, 'Fresh Cut Grass', not an essential oil, per se--but an effective aromatherapy grounding scent. For adding scent we use one pipette full, (1/10 of a ounce) although prudent people suggest only a few drops of essential oil. Either way is fine if it is mixed in the soap first, since the oil disperses into the soap first and not your clothes. Tags: Castile Do It Yourself Laundry Recipe. Make your own laundry soap. DYI Laundry Soap.
Dry Green Laundry Booster
2 parts mule team borax
1 part baking soda
1 part citric (Optional)
Borax is a natural salt and helps the soap clean more effectively. Citric Acid is a great fabric softener. People who try to use vinegar but complain of smell, should use citric acid. We mix ours and keep it in a reusable one gallon white pail. Many people have tried this entire system and say it cleans just as well as the commercial brands. We agree. They also swear using the soap directly on a stain as a stain remover is as good as the commercial brands. Again, we agree. Blood, however comes out better with hydrogen peroxide and ink comes out better with hair spray. Something in hair spray lifts ink out really well. Gummy items come off real well with real orange essential oil. It acts as a solvent.
Keep hydrogen peroxide in your natural laundry bag of tricks.
Top Be a Mabel Club Member! Craft Supply Store Aromatherapy a A/U Mabel Archives
Disinfecting
Colds and Flu viruses were reduced 100% in our lab area since we started wiping down after everyone with 90% or higher alcohol over two years ago. We actually keep it in marked-but pretty hand painted vinegar bottles that have that easy pour spout. We use the alcohol to disinfect communicable areas, but not until it is cleaned with soapy Castile water. Exceptions to soapy water would be like key boards, but we sure do wipe them down with local. Alcohol may disinfect (by making germs evaporate with it--sucking the life out of them), but it does not 'clean' an area. Alcohol is not really effective until it's all evaporated, so you need to wait a good five minutes to use an area after wiping it down with alcohol. Any kind of 90 proof or higher of alcohol is okay; we use the stuff from the pharmacy, just regular rubbing alcohol. (Photo name: Stickem Up)
You can add essential oils to alcohol giving it a great scent. Just add a couple of drops of Lavender, Tea Tree (which is a germ busting powerhouse in its own right) per 8 ounces of alcohol. You can even add Ylang Ylang, from the floral family; Lemon, Lime or Siberian Fir Needle essential oils may also be appealing candidates to scent your alcohol. In the autumn you could add a touch of orange and clove essential oils. The catalytic lamps? This is ALL the base is for fuel. Alcohol 90% or higher and a few pipettes of scent per 16 ounces of "base." Base meaning alcohol.
Be a Mabel Club Member! Craft Supply Store Aromatherapy a A/U
Adding Liquid Castile
and Essential Oils to Mop Water
Mop water has never been more interesting! We use one ounce of Liquid Castile per gallon of mop water, dropping essential oils into our mop water to give it a refreshing, natural and clean scent. Our favorites? Lemon for kitchen and dining areas, Lavender for bedroom areas, Lime or even Peppermint essential oils for the bathrooms. Siberian Fir Needle is quite pretty and smells like a high class pine. One Mabel Rep told me she loves Spearmint. I tried it and it was seductive. I know, spearmint seductive? Yes, more so with Lime.
Add up to an ounce of Tea Tree Essential oil to soapy castile water if you need serious germ busting effects-such as areas that are conducive to mold such as showers and toilets. A few drops of lemon oil can replicate what you may be using to smelling as "clean and fresh."
You can also make a spray in a spray bottle to specifically target mold instead of using chlorine products. To have that fresh and clean commercial scent, use Lemon essential oil and Tea Tree essential oil for its mold busting powers--shaken with water in a sprayer. Spray all potential mold areas until mixture is gone. This is because certain essential oils do not store well and may melt the plastic pump parts. You may want to "flush out" your pump when done with soapy water made from liquid castile soap.
What is the Best Mop?
Well sit down next to me and I will tell you! I have changed mop loyalties. The Clorox Mop was "OK" even when I made my own essential oil solution to go in their pads. I cannot say it really cleaned much and just became convoluted and expensive over time. I found a really chic mop that helps me look forward to "mopping" and works! Under $10 I like the Libman mop. It does not tend to "hold" micro-organisms in like the cotton mops can-so we need not use Clorox as we would have to really clean the mop. And with this I am able to drop essential oils into the mop water, switching pretty easily as I change rooms. With essential oils, my time is almost as fun as bath time! Click the photo of the mop to find out where to buy it.
WMD
Garden Soap: Spiders and Bug
Spray
To make your own natural garden bug controller, add a tablespoon of Mabel’s Liquid Castile Soap to a 16 ounce spray bottle of water. Adding a few tablespoons of cooking oil to the 'potion' and shaking well will really do them in. Bugs do not really like to hang around soap, and oil seems to suffocate tiny ones. Spray the base of your plants because that is where they tend to 'hop on' and leaves, that they are trying to eat in the first place. If you need extra fighting power, they HATE Geranium Essential Oil, (this is why planting geraniums often protects gardens). So a few drops of geranium and maybe Black Pepper Oil, in your potion, will give you WMD in the garden. Other essential oils they do not like include Lemongrass, Orange, Spearmint, & Peppermint. To make a spider spray for inside the home, you may just want to omit the oil part of the recipe and spray where you think they are gaining entry.
Top Be a Mabel Club Member! Craft Supply Store Aromatherapy a A/U Mabel Archives
Pets & Liquid Castile
Rich
and creamy, our Castile Liquid Soap is the way to
lather Rover and also achieve a clean and shiny coat.
Most commercial products in the market are
overpriced and geared with heavy scent to make the
humans happy. They don't have the proper PH, make
the dog miserable as well as rob natural oils from the
pets coat as well as cause skin conditions. Also,
animals often develop
sensitivities to the detergent chemicals commonly used
in synthetic pet shampoos. Then we are told they are
'hot spots' as if they are some unexplained
phenomena.
When your pet suddenly has a skin condition,
then they have more high priced products for that too.
As far as scent, dogs have 25 more times scent
receptors than humans do. It does not take much to
overwhelm them. For this reason, essential oils can be
used, but sparingly. To use, mix 4 ounces (1/2) a cup
of our Castile Liquid Soap too a
gallon bucket of water. Mix well and lather away.
(That is Ringo my very spoiled
adopted Katrina pooch to the left.)
Essential Oils and Dogs
Never apply essential oils directly to your dogs skin. To repel buds, a dosage of 1 drop per 8 ounces of soapy water of the following essential oils can be used on your pooch: Lemongrass, Lavender, and/or Tea Tree. Our lemon Castile Soap has enough lemon essential oil to be sufficient.
Other Natural & Aromatherapy Household Tips
You can spray bath towels with a slight mist of Peppermint for that 'luxurious hotel' feeling. This idea has been borrowed from a Ritz Carlton. I have said this before and I will say it again. BUY WHITE COTTON TOWELS to rewash instead of paper towels. That alone will save you a fortune. I have a "clean" bucket and a "dirty" bucket just for cloth towels. If you are in the UK you will NOT see a paper towel. Last I heard they are alive and well over there.
Eucalyptus is another viable essential oil to use in the disinfecting department.
Orange essential oil will dissolve and get gum off most anything.
Everyone loves the peppermint because it always give a tingly fresh feeling even when entering the hot steamy weather of the summer. It feels revitalizing. I look forward to using it as a body wash along with essential oils I drop in the tub. I know it is natural and will not present toxins into my blood stream. Castile bubbles are also more friendly to those who usually cannot use bubble baths for a reason. This is because commercial surfactants clean too harshly and strip good bacteria, allowing an imbalance-thus yeast infection. And Castile Liquid Soap works great in Jacuzzi bath tubs as a bubble bath. It does not take much-maybe 2 ounces for total luxury!
