Test Kitchen: How To Make "Explosive Showerhead Cleaner"

My quest continues now that I have become obsessed with the idea of homemade remedies for little money. A household problem I have that impacts quite a few people in Las Vegas is hard water stains.  My shower head is big and constantly afflicted with hard water stains.

Enter the Frugally Sustainable website I located via Pinterest.  An easy recipe for removing hard water stains from your shower head.  How could I pass on testing this one out?

Recipe Directions are listed below from the website (http://frugallysustainable.com/2011/11/explosive-showerhead-cleaner/).

1/3 cup Baking Soda
1 Cup White Vinegar
1 large, plastic bag
Twist Tie

"1. Mix baking soda and vinegar in bag over a sink. Caution: Pour vinegar into bag slowly, there is an “explosive” foaming action that kicks in.

2. Place bag over showerhead. Be sure it is submerged in the baking soda/vinegar solution.

3. Secure with twisty tie.

4. Let the showerhead soak in the solution overnight or for at least 2-3 hours.

5. Wipe off showerhead prior to use."

 

Keep in mind, my shower head is large.  I tripled the solution above.  Then the bag was a little too heavy for my twist tie to hold.  I used painters tape since I have so much of it from all of the paint projects.

 

Dark Shower head and Hard Water is not a good combination.

As you can see above, my shower head was not completely submerged in the baking soda portion.  Maybe taping it up higher would have worked better?

 

I call this a 90% improvement.  Even dry the hard water stains are almost gone.  I did the soak for about 3 hours.  I plan on doing this simple trick again in a few months.  Notes to self: get the shower head more submerged into the baking soda portion and soak overnight as indicated in directions.

I am a fan of this one and the other items on the blog.  So much so, I added the Frugally Sustainable Blog link to my page.

 

Test Kitchen: Testing "How To Make Homemade Laundry Detergent"

I've been doing research on easy "How To's" on the Internet via blogs, articles and Pinterest.  Some that stuck out to me like great ideas include "How To Make Your Homemade Laundry Detergent", "Making Your Own Dishwash Detergent", "Cleaning Hard Water Stains from Your Showerhead", and "Baking Soda as Silver Polish".  This post and more to follow has everything to do with my effort to follow these easy directions and get the same results.

How To Make Your Own Laundry Detergent

I found a blog post by WhyNotSew (http://whynotsew.blogspot.ca/2010/08/how-to-make-homemade-laundry-detergent.html) and decided it seemed simple enough and had cost savings listed that were great.  $6.00 for 600 loads of laundry.  I am ready to throw out Tide and give this one a whirl. 

First, I went to locate the items at Walmart.  I had so much faith in this process working, I bought several boxes of each.  You don't need to do this as one box of each will do several batches.  I have issues purchasing just one of anything.

Borax (1 cup)
Washing Soda (1 cup)
Bar of Soap
2 Gallons of Water

Additional Items needed:

One Large Pot
One Long Stirrer
Grater
Funnel

I started by shredding the soap.  I like Caress, so that was the soap I chose.

I added the shredded soap and one gallon of water to the big pot.  It took about 15 minutes for the soap to dissolve. 

Once dissolved, I added the Borax and the Washing Soda.  You need to bring this to a boil so the items start coagulating.  This took some time.  About an hour and a half or so.  It could be my pot, as it is pretty hefty and takes a while to get anything boiling.

Once that has completed, remove pot from the heat and add a gallon of cold water, stirring well. 

I let my batch sit for a couple hours, then stirred again.  I used the funnel as instructed to get the batch into my two empty gallon containers.  At first, this was a pain.  But, then I realized that this process was actually assisting in de-clumping a bit of the batch that I did not stir well enough.  I got the batch into two jugs and shook them pretty good.

I used a cup in my load of laundry.  The waiting...then the washer was done!  I checked the laundry and it looks good to me!  The clothes are clean, no crazy smell and no crazy colors.  Whew!  I put them in the dryer, did another review, and am happy to say I am calling this one a success! 

I have a lot of loads of laundry to do until the next batch.  Oh wait...I was bragging to my brother about this recipe and now he wants a batch.

A friend has asked me if this recipe is resulting in any filminess on the clothes as she had read that previously.  I have not laundered the same clothes enough to answer that one, but will follow up.