Pin Busters! D-I-Y Rosemary Mint Fabric Softener

This pin originated with Jillee over at the One Good Thing blog. It's a take on her basic fabric softener recipe. Her sister made it with Suave's Rosemary + Mint conditioner. I love Aveda's Rosemary Mint Products, so I'm hoping this recreates (or is similar to) that fragrance.


If you'd like to see Jillee's original recipe, you can click here. I only made a half batch since I was testing it - and I eventually ended up making an addition to the ingredients, so I'm going to post my version here:

Ingredients:
3 c. water
1 1/2 c. white vinegar
1 c. Suave Rosemary Mint Conditioner

I ended up adding this, too:
60 drops rosemary essential oil
60 drops spearmint essential oil

Directions:
I put the water and vinegar in the fabric softener bottle and the conditioner in a 4 cup glass measuring cup with a spout. Then I poured about 2 c. of the water/vinegar mixture into the conditioner, using a wire whisk to mix it well. The conditioner had a tendency to clump, so the whisk made the solution smooth. Once the conditioner was smoothly mixed into the water/vinegar, I poured it into the fabric softener bottle containing the rest of the water/vinegar solution. I gently tipped it up and down a couple of times to mix it. Do not shake - it will foam!


To use in the laundry, use the same amount you would normally use of a regular fabric softener in a rinse cycle. I stress regular because I usually use an ultra formula that only requires half the normal amount. So, for instance, if I normally used 1 TBSP. of the ultra formula, I would use 2 TBSP. of this fabric softener. Jillie says you can also spritz it on a wash cloth and throw in dryer. I didn't try that method.

The verdict: Sort of Pin-worthy. Here's the story. The fabric softener itself works well - the clothes were really soft and without static. However, I couldn't smell any scent! Even just smelling the solution in the bottle, I could only smell a faint conditioner scent (not really rosemary mint, just "hair product" scent) and a faint hint of vinegar. The first load of clothes were done with the recipe exactly as above without the essential oils. When I took them out of the washer, I couldn't smell any rosemary mint - just a faint scent of vinegar.

Since there was no scent, I then added the essential oils as listed above. The fabric softener now had a pretty strong rosemary mint scent in the bottle. The next load of clothes had scent while wet, but once they were dry, there still wasn't any scent left on them.

I do have hard water, and some of the people who commented (on Jillee's site) and had hard water stated that they didn't have any fragrance on the dry clothes either. So maybe hard water is the problem.

I liked this and it was cheap and easy to make. I would definitely use this to save money if could figure out how to make the scent stronger/last. I think I'll try using it in the washer and adding a cloth that has been spritzed with the fabric softener in the dryer with the clothes. Maybe the "double dose" will make the scent last.