So, update on the DIY stuff, right?
Shampoo/Conditioner: Oh, this took a while after we moved. It was so slow I didn't notice it, but one day I looked in the mirror and saw that my hair looked... waxy. Not dirty or greasy, just weird. And it would not curl.
One of you lovely reader suggested boiling the water first, mixing a bunch ahead of time, and then just having it in the shower. Well, that worked the first time, but after it had cooled for a day, almost all the baking soda crystallized and plated itself to the bottom of the container. It was like rock salt. Great, if I want to exfoliate my scalp, not so great if I want to clean my hair.
So then I decided to run the bath faucet as hot as it would go before each shower and filling up with that. Magic! It worked again. Now my problem is my hair getting too clean. So I'm back to washing it every other day, which really is better for it, even if I hate it. I also mix honey in with the vinegar once a week. It was moisturizing too much when I used it every day, but it makes a nice once-a-week thing.
Dishwasher detergent: This works fairly well, compared to the commercial detergent. Again with the hard water, though (and Utah disallows phosphates in detergents). Residue and gunk on everything. Feh. So with the second batch I added half a cup of White King, a magical box of stuff that has solved almost all of our hard water problems and I can only find at WinCo. I also mixed it in with two cups of boiling water. It gelled very nicely. And then it turned to gritty, half-frozen butter. Next batch, three cups boiling water. It does work much better now.
Laundry detergent: It was a total waste of time until I discovered White King. I don't think it ever did mix properly, so I still only use it for things that never really get dirty. For diapers, I still use Charlie's Soap. Without our high-efficiency washer and with the special crap we have to buy to deal with the hard water problem (even Charlie's doesn't perform well at all with our water--ammonia burns, yay!), the money savings is not as substantial. It makes my skin itch. Sigh. Oh well. It's still worth it, if not AS worth it. We better not have any more babies until we're in a house with a water softener.
More DIY I've been thinking about: cloth diapers need special diaper rash cream. Many of the ingredients in most creams bond to the fibers, rendering them inabsorbent and smelly. Yay. No more Boudreaux's Butt Paste, which was magic, crafted by Gandalf himself. Both girls are prone to crazy diaper rash, no matter how vigilant we are about changing them frequently. The next person who tells me cloth-diapered babies shouldn't get rashes is going to get punched in the face. The only cloth-safe cream I've found in stores was a bazillion dollars. The ones online are not much better. So! I'm going to see if I can figure out a way to make some myself. This should be interesting.
What else can be DIY without sacrificing quality (or so much efficiency that it becomes far more inconvenient that it's worth)?
