Thursday, August 12, 2010

Soapwort Floor Wash

I decided to try my hand at making a magic floorwash using soapwort. Here goes...

I grabbed some soapwort growing in the ditch across the road and gave them a quick rinse.


I filled up a big pot with water.


Tore the leaves, stems and roots into smaller bits and tossed them in the pot.


I brought the whole she-bang to a boil...


Then boiled it some more.


After about 10 minutes I took out some of the liquid.


Not very bubbly. Wonder what would happen if I gave it a shake...


Lovely foamy bubbles!


I strained the liquid into a bucket and added some water.


Just look at that!


At this point I added some essential oils to my floor wash (grapefruit, gerainium, sage and a drop or two of ylang ylang to encourage a happy household)...


which made all of the bubbles disappear but smelled an absolute treat.

Next time I will add herbs to the pot  instead of using oils and hopefully keep that fantastic foam for just a little longer. The few minutes it took to prepare the wash was a nice way to focus on the magic at hand so I just might add this to my cleansing routine. If you want to give this a try, keep in mind that this is a very gentle cleanser, as a magical wash I think it will work very well, but for dirt and grime it's not exactly the bees knees.

FYI soapwort roots and stems can be dried for later use.