Homemade Fabric Softener

I break out in hives with fabric softeners... all fabric softeners. I have not used fabric softeners since I was a little girl. So, I was super excited to try this.

 Ingredients:

• 1 c Baking Soda
• 6 c Distilled Vinegar
• 8 c Water
• 15 drops Essential Oil (I used DoTERRA Wild Orange -- optional)

Supplies:

• a gallon container (mine was 1.5 gallons and I was grateful for the extra space for the foaming of the baking soda and vinegar.

Directions:

1. Start with 1 c of baking soda in your container.
2. Pour in 1 c of water.
3. Now, SLOWLY add the vinegar. It will foam so keep it slow so it doesn't foam too much. This is really fun for the kids to watch. On the bright side, if it does spray all over your kitchen then you have a head start with cleaning. The cleaner is already spread across your kitchen. ;)
4. Pour in the rest of the water. Stir slowly, again, it will continue to foam. This is when the extra space for half gallon of liquid was handy to have.
5. Add in your essential oils.

How to use:

Okay... there are a couple of different methods. You can put 1 cup of mixture with load of laundry into the dryer. Make sure to shake it up well for the oil if you chose to use any. Or... you could do it the way I did. I took an old hand towel and cut it into fourths then put them all into the container. Now, I pull out one of those towels and toss it into the dryer with the rest of the laundry. YAY!! Now I have fabric softener that doesn't break me out into hives. LOVE IT!! :)