It is so easy to make your own aromatherapy / essential oil dish soap – and many other cleaning products. One BIG plus is that “you” control all of the ingredients – which means you end up with a completely nontoxic product for your sweetly scented  home safe home. Of course, you do not want your ‘green’ home efforts to be wasted so I recommend using an organic therapeutic-grade essential oil such as Young Living’s – cheaper essential oils DO contain chemicals and solvents, plus you will have to use so much that it will end up costing you more in the long run.

Castile soap is one ingredient you’ll be using, it isn’t a brand but a type of soap made exclusively from vegetable oil rather than animal fat or synthetic substances. The purists feel it should be made from olive oil but there’s a wide variety of castile variants that use oil from plants such as coconut and jojoba. The simple nature of the soap means a lesser enviromental impact due to reduced waste stream during manufacture and also faster biodegradability.

Another benefit is that castile soap is far cheaper than fancy label soaps and shampoos! 

Liquid castile soap uses

While bar castile soap is pretty amazing stuff, in a liquid form it’s even more versatile.

- Liquid castille soap can be used as a shaving lather

- A pet shampoo (add a few drops of Young Living Lavender and Palo Santo essential oils for a dog shampoo – wow!)

- Great for washing clothes and diapers

- General cleaning, diluted and used in a spray bottle

- Heavy duty degreasing

- Make your own shampoo (again, add some Young Living essential oils – wow!)

Here is a terrific homemade dish soap recipe that uses natural ingredients, “green” and very eco-friendly! Added benefits,  ’aroma – therapy’ for you, and your kitchen will smell fantastic!

EASY DISH SOAP RECIPE

2 cups liquid castille soap (get Castile soap here)
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice (or 2 drops YL lemon essential oil)
5 drops Young Living essential oil (get Young Living Essential Oils here)
1/2 cup white vinegar (optional because the YL oils will kill germs)

Stir all ingredients together until blended. Store in a squirt top bottle. Use 2 tablespoons per load of dishes, shake a little before use to blend the ingredients. 

Some nice essential oil choices for making your own dish soap: 

Lemon, Orange, Tangerine, Bergamot, Lavender, Melaleuca (Tea Tree), Ylang Ylang, Spearmint, Peppermint, Christmas Spirit (blend), Evergreen Essence (blend), Thieves (blend), Spruce, or Citrus Fresh (blend).

Over 150 different Young Living essential oils are available at my website.

 

An example of a “Not Green” commercial product

These are the two dishwashing detergents Seventh Generation sells and their ingredients. While they say their soap is all-natural, ‘green’, one glance at the list of ingredients immediately tells the savvy consumer that these are simply NOT ‘green’ products. The addition of some essential oils to otherwise not healthy ingredients does not make a product green or safe.

Using the recipe above you can add your Young Living essential oils and come up with the same scent as Seventh Generations – actually it will smell a lot better and be a lot healthier because I’m almost positive they do not use therapeutic-grade essential oils in any of their products. Years ago, I used to buy all of my ‘green’ products from Seventh Generation – I stopped because they’re extremely expensive for what they are, not terribly effective, and are not ‘green’ in my book – hey, but they were the best I could find 15+ years ago, live and learn I guess.

Seventh Generation Dishwashing Liquid Ingredients

Lavender Floral & Mint
Aqua (water), sodium laureth sulfate, cocamidopropyl betaine, cocamide MEA and coceth-7 (plant-derived cleaning agents), sodium chloride (thickener), magnesium chloride (cleaning enhancer), citric acid (cornstarch-derived water softener), essential oils and botanical extracts* (citrus aurantifolia (lime), lavendula angustifolia (lavender), mentha spicata (spearmint), mentha piperita (peppermint), cananga odorata (ylang ylang)), hexahydro-1,3,5-tris (2-hydroxyethyl)-s-triazine (preservative, less than 0.05%). *d-limonene is a naturally occurring component of these ingredients.

Lemongrass & Clementine Zest

Aqua (water), sodium laureth sulfate, cocamidopropyl betaine, cocamide MEA and coceth-7 (plant-derived cleaning agents), sodium chloride (thickener), magnesium chloride (cleaning enhancer), citric acid (cornstarch-derived water softener), essential oils and botanical extracts* (citrus clementina (clementine co2), citrus aurantium bergamia (bergamot fcf), citrus sinensis (blood orange), cymbopogon citratus (lemongrass), carnarium luzonicum (elemi)), hexahydro-1,3,5-tris (2-hydroxyethyl)-s-triazine (preservative, less than 0.05%). *D-limonene is a naturally occurring component of these ingredients.

Unsafe Ingredients in the Seventh Generation Dish Soaps:

Sodium Laureth Sulfate - is a chemical foaming agent, used in clinical testing as a primary skin irritant. Tests on lab animals indicate material may cause mutagenic effects.

Cocamidopropyl Betaine - potential irritant and potentially contaminated with or breaking down into chemicals linked to cancer, a known human immune system toxicant.

Citric Acid - neurotoxicity, one or more animal studies show brain and nervous system effects at very low doses, respiratory effects at very low doses, gastrointestinal effects at very low doses, and organ effects at very low doses.

Hexahydro-1,3,5-tris (2-hydroxyethyl)-s-triazine – classified as toxic or harmful around the mouth; products for use on the lips, sensitization by skin contact, harmful if swallowed.

Cocamide MEA - not safe for use in products intended to be aerosolized, according to industry safety panel (Cosmetic Ingredient Review, CIR), forms carcinogenic nitrosamine compounds if mixed with nitrosating agents.

Note: you can also read the labels of other cleaners and cosmetics in your cabinets to see if any of these unsafe/not natural ingredients are listed. Use the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database search feature to see the toxicity of the products in your home (simply type in the ingredient and click the search button).

Article by Evelyn Vincent, Young Living Distributor. Permission to Reprint: you may link to this article or copy it provided all authorship and links are kept in tact.

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How to Make the Switch to Safer Products

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