Cleaning Products

This is going to be an ongoing subject as I endeavour to replace a huge number of different products.  Like most things on my sustainable living journey I have had some victories and some failures.

Firstly the victory - shampoo and conditioner replacement.  Initially I tried to use soap nuts liquid (more on that later) combined with guar gum (thickening agent) to wash my hair.  Unfortunately it just didn't clean my hair well enough and it started to look greasy.  Yuk!  Fortunately I discovered a much more effective and much easier solution.  I now wash my hair using 2 cups of warm water and 1 T of baking soda.  I pour this slowly over my hair and work it through.  This gets my hair squeaky clean but not stripped of natural oils (which many commercial products do).  I follow this treatment with 2 cups of warm water and 3 T of apple cider vinegar.  Again I pour this slowly through my hair and I try and leave it dripping wet for a minute of so and then rinse it out.  The smell of the apple cider vinegar goes away once my hair is dry although there is the odd smell of apples if my hair gets wet in the rain.  My hair is now clean, soft and shiny.  Please, please try these two products.  They are healthy, probably already in your cupboard, environmentally friendly, cost effective and they do the job.  What more could you ask for?

Now for the failure - soap nuts.  Soap nuts can be ordered on line and are dried fruit with the pips removed. They contain natural soap which is released in warm water.  The company I purchased them from recommended putting about 6 nuts in a cloth bag and straight into the washing machine.  This didn't clean the clothes well enough and I think this was possibly because my washing water wasn't warm enough.  I tried activating them in hot water for 15  minutes beforehand and then putting into the wash.  Again, this didn't quite do the job either.  Finally I decided to make my own soap nuts liquid.  This means that all the soap is drawn out before hand so it can start working immediately.  Just boil 50 grams of soap nuts (smash them up in a tea towel using a rolling pin first) and add 4 cups of water.  Boil for 10 minutes, strain, cool and pour into a recycled container.  Add a few drops of essential oils for a nice fragrance.  I use this liquid to wash my dishes and clothes.  I do think this is working well enough but it is a gentle cleaner.  It is not suitable for very dirty clothes or very greasy dishes.  It does a nice job of cleaning stainless steel and other surfaces.  By adding a few drops of tea tree oil it is great for cleaning bathroom surfaces and floors as the tea tree oil is a natural anti bacterial agent.  So overall I class this as a failure.  My reason for this is although it works in some cases  in order to be practical I think we need a product that can do all the cleaning - not just the easy stuff.  For this reason I will be exploring other dishwashing and clothes washing solutions.  There are plenty of recipes online which I will be testing and I will let you know what I discover.  Again you can use the soap nuts liquid for surfaces and floor cleaning however I think we will find that some standard common ingredients (baking soda and vinegar) do the job just as well and the ingredients are very easy to access.  

So overall these experiences have helped to clarify what I am looking for in a product on top of the health and environmental concerns.  I want products that can be used in all situations and applied to as many different jobs as possible.  I also prefer products that are already used in the home rather than purchasing specialised products.  

I have been using the soap nuts (shampoo) as a body wash and this is a nice gentle cleaner.  However I am very interested in learning how to make my own soap from ingredients such as milk and honey (both of which I have easy access to).  I will talk about this project in future posts.

Finally - now that you've eliminated shampoo and conditioner - I think we should have a go at moisturiser.  I feel quite strongly about this for two good reasons.  Your skin is a sponge so anything you put on it you may as well eat.  The ingredients of many moisturisers are very long and certainly not edible.  The other reason is the high cost of commercial moisturisers.  Most of this is down to marketing and packaging.  

The recipe I am using is this:

Heat 1/2 cup of good quality olive oil with 2 T of grated beeswax.  Remove from the heat as soon as the wax melts.  Now get 1 C of tepid water and use a blender, stick blender or electric beaters to emulsify into the oil.  To do these you need to pour a slow steady stream of water into the oil while mixing all the time.  I have had mixed results from this.  Often I only get 1/2 a cup of water into the oil before it stops accepting it and forms water bubbles instead.  This doesn't really matter.  You just end up with a thicker, greasier moisturiser.  And the moisturiser will soak into the skin very quickly.  Add a few drops of essential oil if you want a fragrance but make sure you use one that is gentle on the skin.  Some essential oils will aggravate the skin.

I think that's enough for now.  By replacing shampoo, conditioner and moisturiser you have saved lots of money and it is so much better for you and the environment.  What is also amazing to me is they work just as well, if not better, than the commercial products.

Katherine's First Day of Life 

My next post will be all about Katherine, our pet lamb and future milking sheep.  If you can get hold of a great local supply of raw milk then you can make yoghurt, ice cream, cheese and butter.  With the huge price of dairy products you will soon be saving lots more money.  Katherine is an ongoing project - we won't be milking her for another year - but I think you will enjoy following our journey with her.  

Reuse Recycle

We all know the mantra right?  Reuse, Recycle and there is one other R but I can't remember it.  On that theme I'd like to share with you my recent fun "reuse" project.

I bought four pure wool jerseys at a garage sale recently.  They were actually two long sleeved jerseys and two vests.  The guy selling them said they were hand spun and hand knitted by his mother for him.  She had since died of cancer.  He said the wool came from up the Wairoa Valley near Blenheim.  I think one of the best things about reusing is that your product already has a history - in this case one of a mother's love for her son and her skill as being able to turn raw wool into lovely warm jerseys.  

I took them home and removed some of the joins.  The two vests ended up as four pieces of knitted material.  The jerseys had their sleeves removed and were then opened out - keeping the shoulder seams together.  I then pulled the wool down from the sleeves and ended up with a couple of balls of good quality hand spun wool.  

My mother in law Everdien is a clever lady and she helped me to plan my blanket.  We ended up using the two opened out jerseys and the two halves of one vest.  These were sewed together with a bright coloured wool in a cross stitch pattern.  As Everdien said I can always change the colours as the mood suits me.  There were gaps for the neck holes and a few other gaps due to waist tapering so I had to knit extra pieces to fit using the original wool from the sleeves.  Finally Everdien crocheted around the outside to hold it all together.  I had thought of using it as a floor rug but it is just so lovely and cozy to wrap around you.  So it is a throw for the couch and a blanket as required.  

With the two remaining pieces from the last vest I sewed them over a pillow and made a regular pillow and a bolster pillow.  All together they create the most nuturing comforting little nest - which I usually have to share with Leo.  While I am enjoying them I often think back about the original creator and I think she would approve.

I have had an incredibly sucessful morning in the kitchen and I just felt like sharing.

Today I made cheese for the first time.  This is hopefully the beginning of something beautiful.  It reminds me of the first loaf of bread I made when I was 7.  This was a very simple cheese to make - much like cottage cheese.  Thanks to Jean Mansfield from the highly recommended book How to Make Cheese and Other Dairy Products.  Bring 1 1/2 litres of full cream milk to the boil and then turn off the heat.  Add 2 1/2 T of lemon juice.  Stir gently with a wooden spoon.  Let it cool for 5 minutes.  Then poor the liquid through a sieve.  Let is drip for a while and then transfer the cheese to a container.  Add some salt to taste.  Magic.  I just had some crumbed in my salad and it was delicious.  Has a lovely lemony after taste.  The remaining whey and there is quite a lot of it can be put to good use.  I'm going to boil up my potatoes in it to give them a lovely creamy flavour.  If you Google - uses for whey - you will find all sorts of interesting things including using it to clean your hair!

My other creation is equally exciting.  I am not very good at baking.  I always seem to get the quantities wrong or drop the whole lot on the floor (which I did last week).  To add insult to injury my husband prefers my friend Alison's cakes to mine.  Unfortunately we seem to have some kind of sixth sense as we always end up baking the same kind of cake at the same time.  This week we both decided to cook cheese cake.  We decided to called it the Cheese Cake Off.  Naturally my competitive nature came out so I Googled - Best Baked Cheesecake in the Whole World Recipe.  And you know what - I think it just might be.  Absolutely nothing went wrong - nothing.  And it looks wonderful.  It will be taste tested tonight at our weekly neighbourhood board game night so I'll let you know what the neighbours think.  My husband has already had Alison's cheesecake before and reckons it will be hard to beat.  Someone just might be sleeping in the spare bedroom tonight.  The cheesecake was easy to make so feel free to contact me for the recipe or you could just do the same Google search that I did.



Happy baking.

Living Sustainably

This blog is intended for people who wish to follow my journey towards living a more sustainable lifestyle.  My intention is to endeavour to remove as many items from my shopping list as possible.  And to replace those items with things I can either make or are made by someone as locally as possible.  In addition the items have to be good for the body, good for the environment and good for the soul.

This mission of mine began with an epiphany in the supermarket.  I realised that I had blindly been buying items for years that I had the time and the ability to make myself.  And even if I didn't currently possess that ability I could very easily learn thanks to the sharing, caring world of the Internet.

For starters I believe everyone in the world can make bread.  If you're a busy working Mum or Dad a bread maker will do the work for you.  If you have the time and the inclination you can make it by hand.  The benefits - there is nothing quite like the taste or smell of freshly baked bread.  In my opinion a home doesn't become a home before the first loaf of bread is baked.  It is the first thing I did when we moved to Kaikoura.  Secondly, you control the ingredients - no additives, preservatives, flavour enhancers etc.  With a bit of trial and error you can make a loaf that meet's your family's personal preferences.  Don't be afraid to add seeds, fruit and nuts.  Bread is quite cheap so you can't really go wrong.  The third great thing about bread is that it freezes well - so you can make several loaves and pop them in the freezer.  A perfect solution for busy families.  Next time you are in the supermarket enjoy the feeling of breezing past the bread aisle.  Congratulations you have just eliminated one section of the supermarket!  You have made you family a little big healthier, reduced carbon emissions, saved some money, and taken back just a little of your consumer power.

Basic bread recipe:

Place 1 1/2 cups of warm water in a bowl and dissolve 1 T of sugar or honey in it.  Congratulations - you've just made the perfect home for a family of yeast.  Sprinkle 1/2 a T of yeast over the sweet water mix.  Leave in the sunshine for 15 minutes.  By the time you return you should have a nice foamy mixture.  Add 2 C of flour and stir with a plastic or wooden spoon.  Yeast doesn't like metal.  Then add a teaspoon of salt.  You'll need to taste the bread after to see if you need more or less salt in your mix.  Now add one more cup of flour.  You'll probably struggle to mix in all the flour.  It doesn't matter.  Now its time for the yeasty / flour mix to leave home.

Scoop the mix with the loose flour onto a clean flat surface.  You may need to sprinkle extra flour on the board before this depending on how much loose flour is in the mixing bowl.  You'll soon learn.  Now for the fun part.  Kneading.  You'll soon come up with an action that works for you.  Your goal is to amalgamate all the flour into a smooth ball.  I do this by pushing the heel of my hand into the middle of the dough.  Fold the top side over the bottom using the dent as a hinge.  Then push down and roll away from you - effectively sealing up the join.  Then turn it 90 degrees (whichever direction appeals) and repeat.  Keep going until the dough has a lovely smooth baby bum feel to it.  Then put a little oil in the original bowl and return the dough to the bowl.  Cover with a tea towel and put it somewhere warm.  On a nice day a spot in the sun, on a cold day near the fire or in the hot water cupboard.

In half an hour is should have doubled in size.  You now need to punch it down so that lots of air escapes.  This is to remove some of the yeasty gas and ensures it doesn't taste too "yeasty."  Then put it back on the clean surface with another sprinkling of flour.  Knead it briefly and then decide what you are going to make with it.  You can simply make one big free form loaf by slapping it (gently) on a baking tray.  You can cut it into pieces and make several loaves.  You can put it in a bread tin if you like a big square shape or you can put it in muffin tins and make bread rolls.  Leave it in these containers for another half hour to rise.  Preheat your oven to 200 c.

Now bake for 30 minutes and once cooked remove from containers and place it somewhere with air circulation to cool.  If you have a cooling rack great.  I don't and just put them onto top of my gas stove which has the metal protection bars over the elements.  These allows all sides of the bread to dry.

Now try not to eat the whole loaf before the family gets home!

You can make any changes you like.  You can try different ratios of wholemeal to white flour.  You can add seeds, nuts, dried fruits.  Just see what works for you and your family.

The next aisle on our target is the cleaning aisle.  Next time you at the supermarket (once you have completed the bread baking challenge) just stand in the cleaning aisle and ask yourself "what is the basic ingredient in all these bottles?"  You are not presented with a world of choice and wonderfully targeted products - you are being sold the same item over and over again in different bottles.  The answer of course is soap - or something that acts like soap.  Find a natural, healthy replacement for soap and you can successfully eliminate the cleaning aisle and a fair bit of the beauty aisle too.  Next blog I'll talk about cleaning products that are gentle on the body, as efficient as their chemically laced supermarket cousins, cost effective, and great for the environment.

Happy bread making!