Selfsufficientish.com

G'Day All,

I am reading a new book (I will review in the book area when finished) called, predictably enough - Living the Good Life - about a family in Brisbane who went for 6 months trying to live sustainably on a backyard (4 times the size of mine!). See this site for info -
http://www.lintrezza.com/six_months.html

Anyway, she talks about using an old Hoover twin tub to wash clothes and makes a soap based laundry gel. I have been wrestling with washing clothes for some months in our drive to become self sufficietish and more sustainable. We have USA made Whirlpool super duper washing machine - fully automatic. It sucks in and spits out pretty large lumps of water and, while we are getting a bigger water tank, I doubted the capacity of any tank to power it. Not only that but when I tried to run it off the 12volt system through an inverter (the BIG, heavy duty one) it would trip out. It must pull phenomenal amounts of power!

So I read about the twin tub last Thursday and had a second hand one on Saturday. Used it Sunday and it is a ripper! I bucket water in from the exisitng tanks and get 3 washed out of it, then dump the water on the lawn. The inverter hardly knows that there is a load on it and it works like a dream. Yes it is smaller and you have to load the washing from the wash to the spin dryer - but we can run it on our own resources!

Now all I've got to do is make up the laundry gel and give it a go!

Nev

Have you tried soapnuts??

Also, I've heard that you don't actually NEED soap - I haven't been brave enough to try that and perhaps that only applies to automatic washing machines. I use one of the washing balls filled with little pellets http://www.lakeland.co.uk/product.aspx/ ... shing!5718 and the results are great.

The book sounds GREAT!!

G'Day Shirlz,

Don't know soapnuts, never seen them!

I have seen the balls for sale on mail order but never bought them. I like the idea of making laundry gel, though. I am going to use some home made soap to base it on.

Nev

I've ordered a starter bag and nuts to give them a go, I've used ecover for years but I like the idea of no plastic packaging, and my youngest has very dry skin so the fewer chemicals the better, thanks for the link Shirlz!

kind thoughts
Deb

Is it just me that thinks that link sounds dodgy

The site is great though Debs - I've bought from there before and so have some of the gals that post on my boards and they've all been really pleased with them.

Let us know how you get on.

yes the link does sound a bit dodgy, I hadn't notice til you said....my OH wil start to get nervous if he looks at the history section in our browser....

kind thoughts
Deb

Ok,.................... a bit slow here...................just got it!



Nev

darn, thought you had found a way for the clothes to really wash themselves....
not sure what recipe is given in the book. have tried one with grated soap, water, washing soda and it works alright on the dark clothes. haven't tried adding borax, ammonia or eucalyptus oil.
have found a site that uses grated soap, borax and washing soda - all mixed in the dry form. guess the advantage is that you don't have a bucket of gel to dodge.
have heard about the book on today tonight. does it have many tips or just good reading?

Both Nick!

It does come on a bit heavy on the damage we are doing, which in my case is preaching to the choir, but for the casual reader it is good!

The laundry gel she uses is similar to the one in barbara Lord's "Green Cleaner" with the grated soap and washing soda. I'm not sure I would use the borax because of it's toxicity, unless your land is low in boron!

Nev

My little package arrived today, I couldn't wait to give them a go! I ripped open the bag and whacked some in the machine in the cotton drawstring bag they sent. There is a bit of visable foam on the inside of the machine door that surprized me and the clothes certainly appeared to be clean- the wet nuts smell faintly of vinegar, but the load doesn't so I think I'll carry on using them for a while and see how we get on.
I rubbed a wet nut on my hand and there was a small amount of lather so there could be a way of making handsoap out of used soapnuts......I'll have to experiment...

kind thoughts
Deb

Hiya

I think you use them a few times before they are 'spent' don't you?? And yes, I'm sure there was instructions for making liquid soap with mine... I've bloomin well misplaced mine so have to order some more.

Sounds good so far!

Hope you are having a better day today.

I didn't recieve any instructions with mine- I'll have to google and see what I get... And yes, today has been better, thanks!

kind thoughts
Deb

PS well done Shirlz for avoiding any double entendres concerning wet nuts, ahem,

I've heard of these nuts before - what type are they? More importantly, can we grow them? Now that would be the ultimate selfsufficiency...
And I think I read you can use them twice.

http://ethicstrading.com/howtosoapnuts.htm if you read through - gives you instructions

As if I could possibly find any slippery connotations of wet soap nuts!