Scented vinegar for laundry

[~gd]

A lot of us use vinegar for fabric softener replacement. I know I was shocked at how well it worked.

I never thought about scenting it until I found this elsewhere the other day:

3 C. Vinegar
2 C. Cheap hair conditioner (smell you like)hate to be the one to tell you but hair conditioner and fabric softener is just about the same thing! ~gd
6 C. water
Mix together in an old fabric softener jug and use as you would in your washer. If you like you can use it to make your own dryer sheets. Cut up an old Tshirt and pour the softener onto the rag and toss in the dryer with wet clothes.

AND

I use one whole jug of vinegar and I peel the rind off of two huge oranges. I love that smell of citrus. You cut into strips to tuck in jug and then I set it aside for two weeks. This is fantastic stuff. I use it straight in my front loader. Nice and fresh. If you like grapefruit better give it a try. Then eat the oranges as a snack. No waste..

 

[Marianne]

About the same, eh? for some reason, it doesn't surprise me!

 

[nachoqtpie]

Could you put lavender in the vinegar? Do you think it would work?

 

[Marianne]

Could you put lavender in the vinegar? Do you think it would work?

From what I read, the essential oils will be stronger and give more of a scent than a tincture (herbs or flowers seeped in water). I was thinking the same thing with the lavender, but mine winterkilled a year ago.

As someone else said, there isn't really a scent left on the clothes. I bet it would be the same with the lavender. I thought the orange vinegar just left them smelling fresher, but they didn't smell like oranges. Maybe if there were more peels in the vinegar? I don't know.

Softer clothes with the hair conditioner, huh? Okay, I'm going to have to try that now. The last time I looked at fabric softener in the store, it was around $6 or more for the name brand stuff.

 

[nachoqtpie]

I haven't been using anything at all and my clothes are okay. My best friend and I are always at odds because of us wanting to be self sufficient. She said once we get our farmette that she's not going to come eat dinner with us any more because we "eat our pets." I tried to explain to her that livestock aren't pets, but she just says "Chickens, goats and baby cows are pets!"

Yesterday she asked me what I was doing and I said I was looking for fabric softener, and she says "I found a great deal on the Bounce fabric bar! It was only $7 and it lasts 2 months!" I said, "yup... that's a pretty good deal, but mines better. i bought a gallon of vinegar for $2 and that will last me about 2 months... and it also doubles as hair conditioner, cleaners, and several other things too! I win."

 

[Marianne]

It's funny - when you really get into the SS lifestyle, you're very aware of how wasteful people can be, huh. I guess to each their own...but I'll never forget the gal that when she was asked if she was prepping, she proudly said that she was! She had already stocked 37 boxes of Tide.

 

[nachoqtpie]

Wow...... LOL

We have a pretty small house right now, (well okay, its not really small, just laid our funky! Our master bath and closet are bigger than our master bedroom! LOL) and we try to reuse and recycle as much as possible. We have it down to about 1 bag of trash a week for a family of 4! Almost all of our paper gets shredded for our garden, some of our cans get reused for seed starting, paper bags get shredded for the compost bin, a lot of our kitchen scraps go to the compost, and we try to only buy plastics that we can recycle or reuse. I would love to stock up on more food items, and I'm sure eventually we will get there, but right now, we just do what we can.

I've been trying to figure out a way to get canning jars cheaper. I did find a place online that sells a case of pints for $9.99 and quarts for $11.99. But... I did a mock order of 4 cases of pints and 4 cases of quarts... total for the 8 cases was $83.92 and shipping was $88.88!!! No thanks... I could get them at the dollar store MUCH cheaper!! The Jar Store isn't much better.

I'm going to start scouring our thrift stores as well.... but people around here always want to get their money back for everything so usually our thrift stores don't have many good items. On Craigslist for a neighboring town you can find inexpensive items all day long (couches, dressers, everything!) Here... everybody wants to jack up the prices because it's a military town and they know what people get paid. The amount of money that the guys get to live out in town (called BAH for the Marine Corps) is actually higher in the podunk don't even have a Panera Bread town than it is to live in the capitol of NC!! It's ridiculous!

 

[luvinlife offthegrid]

I am going to try this softener recipe. What I have done in the past is... drip a few drops of scented essential oil scattered around on a washcloth and throw that in the dryer to give the clothes a scent. It works well. Some scents are much stronger than others, so start off with a couple drops. Also- if the drops are all concentrated in one area, you could risk a grease stain I suppose, but it's never happened to me. I don't do this anymore because I no longer have a washer and dryer. I wonder what would happen if I showed up at the laundrymat with a bottle of vinegar and grapefruit rinds.

 

[Marianne]

Who knows? Maybe you could help educate someone?

 

[snapshot]

I show up at the laundrey mat with a glass jar of vinegar every week-- including today. The girls who run the place have never said a word. It is in a glass "instant tea" jar. Maybe they think it is vodka!!!!