What 'green disasters' have you encountered on your green/frugal quest? [View all]

[laundry_queen]

What I mean is what frugal or green/environmentally friendly products or 'tips' have you tried that totally bombed?

I'll start - I wanted to get away from storebought dishwasher detergent, so I looked up a 'homemade' recipe online that was a mix of borax and baking soda, with vinegar in the rinse agent cup. I was a little concerned because we had extremely hard water, but I was told the vinegar would get rid of any hard water residue. Um, no.

OMG, it left a thick white powdery coating all over everything - my dishes, my dishwasher, my utensils. Try as I might, I couldn't get the residue off, even with cascade and jet dry. Someone told me to run 2 cups of vinegar through the dishwasher several times. So I did that and the vinegar disintegrated one of the rubber seals for the filters, which I then had to scrape off because it turned to goo, and I had to buy a new one. And the coating was still there.

I eventually had to scrape it off the dishes with an SOS pad, and I had to run CLR through my dishwasher several times to get rid of the thick coating. I currently use Cascade packs or Finish Quantum. I'm too scared to try anything environmentally friendly lest I destroy my (brand new, different house) dishwasher again.

So that's my worst story. Others include using a shampoo bar on my hair (it was like trying to comb my hair after putting glue in it), making my own body wash and adding essential oils (I found out you can't add just any essential oil to body wash. Especially if you like to keep your privates clean...), I made 'natural' mosquito repellant that was more like mosquito attractant...

There are others...but I'll spare you So...what have you tried that completely failed??