I don't know about you, but I'm still looking natural alternatives to commercial household products.
Laundry, as we know it now, has only existed since the 1930s with the invention of synthetic surfactants.
So I wondered:what products were used for laundry and cleaning BEFORE the appearance of the multinationals producing chemical products?
The answer is amazing:our ancestors used wood ash.
Yes, as incredible as it may seem, wood ash can be easily transformed into a 100% natural detergent and remarkably efficient!
And what's more, it only requires ashes and water! You got it right:free laundry exists and it's easy to do. Watch:
- fine, clean wood ash (white or gray in color)
- muslin
- an old bucket that you can pierce
- a second clean bucket
1. Drill holes in an old bucket.
2. Cover the bottom of the bucket with muslin and add a good layer of ashes (about 3 glasses per liter of water).
3. Hang the leaky bucket. Then, place another bucket, very clean, under the pierced bucket.
4. Pour water into the leaky bucket. This process will extract the potash from the ash.
5. The muslin will filter the ashes:you get a wood ash detergent in the clean bucket!
Note: Wood ash lye is brown in color. Therefore, when the water flowing from the hanging bucket starts to become clear, you can stop the filtration process.
6. Finally, pour the liquid into a clean bottle:your detergent is ready!
7. Shake to mix. You will see that the detergent is already foaming.
8. Pour about 100 ml of this detergent into the washing machine (even less for recent machines).
There you go, you now know how to make your own wood ash detergent :-)
You can also add a few drops of essential oil (10 drops for 1 l of water) to make it smell good.
With this water based ash lye you can clean and disinfect laundry, surfaces, plates and cutlery and even rust marks on marble surfaces.
Warning: only use fine and clean ash , white or gray in color.
Remember that ash detergent is caustic and can damage your hands.
You can also reuse the leftover ashes in the muslin. Put them in your compost or at the foot of the plants, because potash is an excellent fertilizer.
There is a little trick to know if your detergent is ready to use.
Just dip an egg in the lye.
If the egg floats, the lye is ready to use.
If the egg does not float, you have to start the process again (pour the water from the clean bucket back into the bucket with the muslin and the ashes).
And you ? Do you know another recipe for using wood ash? Share it with us in the comments. We can't wait to read you! :-)
