But is it possible to make your OWN dishwasher detergent? To use on a regular basis, not as an emergency substitute? Can you really unhook from the crazy that is the price of Cascade?

The Damsel is happy to inform that yes, you can easily make your own. As a matter of fact, the hardest part is trying to buy the ingredients: washing soda and borax. Apparently, these were pretty common items in the olden days, but are harder to find now.

Both of these items are considered laundry boosters, and generally that’s where you’ll find them at the store: in the laundry aisle. Borax is pretty easy to find. It’s the washing soda that’s tricky.

After sufficient sleuthing and you still come up empty, you COULD buy this. The ingredient is the same: sodium carbonate. The Damsel bought this at Wal-Mart in the pool/spa chemical aisle. However, it’s twice as expensive this way. $7 vs. $3.50.

If you’re interested in making other homemade cleaners as well, it’s worth it to keep hunting down the washing soda. It shows up in many cleaner recipes.

To make it, all you do is mix equal parts of washing soda and borax. The Damsel measured one cup of each into a container and stirred. That is all.

To use, try one tablespoon first and see how your dishes look. If you have a compartment that looks like this, fill the little side with the mixture and the big side with vinegar. This will help the glassware come out looking great.

The Damsel hesitates to give this an enthusiastic review. She’s only tried it once so far, and while most of the dishes looked perfectly clean, some didn’t. To be fair, she has extremely hard water and her dishwasher is trying to die. No dishwasher should have to work as hard as hers. She’s going to try it again, with a little more detergent and possibly adding the vinegar to the rinse cycle rather than in the dispenser. This will require more vigilance and hovering than she’s used to, but that is her plan.

It’s easy, as long as your drain isn’t already backed up. If you do this every month or so, your drains will be happier, and you won’t have to use poison.

Grease gets stuck on the sides of sink pipes in the most fastidious of kitchens. The Damsel doesn’t want to think about what that would look like, with other stuff stuck to that, etc. No wonder drains don’t always smell like a daisy.

This method uses stuff you’ve got hanging around–nothing toxic.

Pour a cup (don’t fuss…doesn’t have to be exact) of baking soda down your drain.

Follow with a cup of vinegar. Yes! This is the same thing you make volcanos out of at the science fair. It will bubble in a satisfying way.

Follow with a gallon or two of boiling water. (Poured for this picture by Sprog #1. Yes, he’s quite tall) This melts grease . . . and any time you pour boiling water down your sink, you’re doing it the same favor. Pasta water, teapot water, etc.

P.S. Did you know you can pour boiling water on weeds, especially those growing in the cracks of cement, for a completely chemical free form of weed death?

Still, lime can build up in there, and some people complain of rust or iron streaks. The Damsel doesn’t spend a lot of time with her head inside the dishwasher and tries not to think about the idea there is ANOTHER thing in her house to wash that isn’t already on the schedule. But, it turns out it’s not so hard.

Citric acid will take off the lime and rust. For a deliciously hands-off method, fill the detergent reservoir with the old-school drink Tang (do they still sell it?) or lemonade-flavored Kool-aid. (It needn’t be Kool-aid brand, but it has to be the lemon flavor. Citrus, ya know.)

Then all you have to do is run the dishwasher through a cycle. Yay! No more sleepless nights fretting about the condition of the inside of your dishwasher.

Have you ever been late to a meeting, only to find out the shirt you must wear is wrinkled? You stand there in your undies, frantically ironing. Just when you are finishing the last section, the iron burps out brown gunk from the steam vents. The shirt is unwearable now, and the day slips even farther into the panic zone.

So. About that brown gunk. What is it, and why did it heartlessly ruin your day?

The brown gunk is sediment. The minerals in the water that you filled the little water tank with have deposited themselves in the innards of your iron. Now you know. It’s time to clean the thing. But how?

Unplug your iron and empty as much of the little water tank as you can. Now refill it with ½ vinegar, ½ water. Don’t stress; it need not be exact. The Damsel won’t mind if you end up filling the whole thing with vinegar. Slosh it around if you can, and let it sit a few minutes. Plug the iron back in and turn it to high with the steam setting on.

Discharge as much steam as you can by ironing an old towel or rag. Many irons have a “clean” button, or some such thing that causes the iron to shoot out bursts of steam. Alternate ironing and steam-bursting until the iron no longer gives off any specks of brown through the steam vents. This will take several minutes.

Ring! Ring! Hello, honey, whatcha up to right now?

Oh, hi, dear. Just ironing the rags. Gotta go!

It wouldn’t hurt to refill the iron with another vinegar/water dose and let it sit again. Take a nap, read a blog, and come back and do the steam-on-the-towel a few more times until you feel really good about the sparkling steam now coming from your iron.

Do this regularly to keep the brown menace away from your nice white shirts. Or, buy a jug of distilled water and keep it in your ironing area, to use strictly for filling the iron. Distilled water has no minerals left in it, so it can’t gunk up your iron. Kindly note that distilled water and bottled “spring” water are not the same thing. In fact, spring water is heavier with minerals than tap water, and will be twice as bad about causing brown gunk.

The worst brown gunk the Damsel has personally experienced has come from using perfumed ironing water. Beware! There are easier ways to make your clothes smell nice.

At least you don’t have to use this seriously old school iron. You’d have to put it in the fireplace to heat it up. The Damsel can guess why they were called “sad irons.” Maybe you wouldn’t have brown gunk from steam vents, though. You’d only have ashes to worry about. Holy cow!

Put 3 cups (or thereabouts) of warm water into a container. The Damsel has a lot of quart jars hanging around, so she reached for one of those.

Add 1/2 cup plain white vinegar. The thought behind the “plain white” is that dark vinegar might make a spot of its own.

Now add 3 tablespoons of baking soda. Careful! A certain unnamed person dumped this in all at once, completely forgetting anything about science fair volcanos. That certain person watched in amazement as half her solution bubbled up and over the sides of her jar. Ha ha! That person is silly.

Stir. Yes, it will bubble and foam and so on, giving us all hope that there is something magic going on, because that’s what carpet spots need.

Now the Damsel fearlessly takes you to her living room, where a few mysterious spots have appeared. Grandma would not approve. The Damsel has learned not to ask why or how the spots came to be, because life is already full of enough futility.

Scrub the offending spot with a cloth or scrub brush. Let it dry, then vacuum.

Now the Damsel can hold her head high again.

P.S. the green bracelet seen on the Damsel’s wrist is in honor of the Damsel’s brother in law, who is fighting cancer with a lot of strength and style. Ben’s a frequent reader of the Old School, and if you felt like giving him a shoutout in the comments, it’d bring a grin to that big ole currently-bald face of his.

Plus, her sprogs don’t know how to use bars of soap. They only know how to use soft soap dispensers, and she feels like it’s her lucky day when they’ll even do that.

So today’s class is on how to make soft soap out of those slivers. It’s not hard! Don’t be scared!

Step One: Save up your soap slivers until you have about a cup’s worth.

Chop ‘em up. Some people say you should grate them, but it’s not necessary considering what’s in store.

Sweep it all into your blender, and pour in an equal amount of boiling water. (It can be merely hot, if there’s a chance of your blender breaking. But the hotter the better)

Process until smooth, and let cool. Add additional water if necessary, until it’s the same consistency as that stuff you buy in the store. The Damsel felt a little strange putting nonfood in her blender but hey! It’s soap! Now her blender is very, very clean.

In Dis Dress Warning: Determine the consistency when the glop is COOL or you may end up with rubbery, nondispensible soap glop. Just sayin’.

Pour into soft soap dispensers that you have frugally saved. One cup of soap shavings makes two soap dispenser-fulls.

Grandma didn’t have soft soap dispensers. She would have used this to wash her nice little things. Don’t ask the Damsel to say what the nice little things are. You know what they are.

She’d really hate it if she had to say “bloomers” or “knickers.”

*shudder