Here’s another giveaway for your fine Saturday evening — this one sponsored by Borax! I never actually knew what was in Borax Laundry Booster, so here goes: “Borax is the common name for sodium tetraborate: A naturally occurring substance produced by the perpetual evaporation of seasonal lakes.” They wash, dry, and box it, and don’t add anything else. It has all sorts of interesting uses, including naturally softening hard water, boosting detergent’s cleaning power, and helping stains from being redeposited back on clothes.
Borax sent over a box for review as well –
So what did I do with my Borax?
I figured that people talk about Borax and laundry all the time, so why not do something different with mine? Luckily (ha! not, ew…), our kitchen has all of a sudden been infested with ants this week. Ants. In January. What the heck? So I was reading about Borax as a more natural way to get rid of the little critters, and thought it was definitely worth a try.
Online, I read about people sprinkling a line of Borax and sugar along where the ants are coming in. Well, I didn’t want to leave that out because of our cats, so I used this recipe from The Happy Housewife: mix 1/2 C sugar, 1 1/2 Tbsp Borax, and 1.5 C warm water. Soak cotton balls in the mixture, and put them out by the mess of ants.
BOY did they like that. So, I locked the cats in the bedroom for a few hours yesterday morning and set several soaked cotton balls in a line along the edge of the cabinet where the ants were coming in under. I let the ants go to town, picked up the cotton balls, wiped up the floor , and let the cats out. Then, repeated the experiment for a second round of about an hour last night (with MUCH fewer ants).
So far today? No ants! It’s been 24 hours since I’ve seen any, which is probably too early to tell, but I’m hoping that this helped. I’d sprayed earlier in the week, which only helped temporarily and then the ants would be back in force the next day.
Borax Facebook Sweepstakes
- Borax is holding a “New Year, Fresher Laundry” sweepstakes on Facebook! Enter there for a chance to win the $1500 grand prize or coupons for free Borax, then see below for your chance to win Borax for yourself:
On to the giveaway
What can you win?
- One Mashup Mom reader will win THREE coupons, each good for one FREE box of Borox!
How do you enter?
- Just comment here and let me know what you’d do with your Borax if you win.
One entry per comment; maximum of one comment per person; each comment is an entry. Enter through 11:59 PM Central on 1/22/13. U.S. residents only, please. If you are reading this through email or Facebook, please click on the title of this post (up at the top where it says “Giveaway — Borax…”) to go back to the blog. Scroll down to the bottom of the post and you will see a box to enter your comment; just comment there to enter.
Email and Facebook entries will not be counted. If you are reading the Mashup Mom homepage on the web, look at the bottom of this post where it says “___ comments.” Click on that to get the box to enter your own comment.
The fine print
Borax provided the coupons and information for this giveaway. I received a box of Borax for review; however, all thoughts and opinions here are my own. The winner will be chosen on or around 1/23/13 through random number generation at random.org and will have 48 hours to respond to notification email; Mashup Mom reserves the right to choose a runner up if no response is received in that timeframe.
No purchase necessary. The number of eligible entries receives determines the odds of winning. Void where prohibited.
Posts on Mashup Mom may contain affiliate links. Please see the disclosure and disclaimer statement.
I’ve been wanting to try it in my laundry, especially whites.
I use borax as a part of my homemade laundry detergent!! I love it!
I would use the borax to make more of my home made, money saving detergent!
I would use it to help with my laundry since I have very hard water! I’m hoping it would help make things whiter and brighter.
I would use it to make my own laundry detergent as well as keep some around for the spring when we will inevitably get ants!!
I’d use the borax on my son’s clothes. He’s a 20yr old who’s been doing his laundry since he was in high school. However, we just can’t seem to get that “sweaty guy” odor out of his clothes. Maybe some good old borax will do the trick. Hey, remember when we used to make Flubber from borax?!
We get ants every year it seems. So want to try it for this -and laundry of course.
I would put it in my laundry, since I don’t have a water softner.
I’d use it to make laundry detergent.
I would like to use it for laundry!
I put it in my shoes to keep them from stinking. I don’t remember how my mother learned this but my father had terribly stinky feet. He could take a shower and sit down right after without shoes or socks on and his feet would begin to stink! Gross I know. Well anyways he tried everything, including going to the doctor and nothing worked. Someone told my mother to sprinkle 20 Mule Team Borax in his shoes and joila his feet never smelled again.
I’d like to try to add it to laundry! Never tried this stuff..
I’d mostly use it for laundry since I have hard water and no softening system.
I already use Borax, so I’d continue using it. I use it on our cloth diapers to help with stink and discolouration. I might use it on bugs this summer though, as that seems to work quite well.
I’d love to try it out with our ant problem too! How about making cool slime dough with the kids? And, of course, to boost my laundry detergent!!!
OMG i love Borax, i use it all the time in my work cloths. the best i ever use. it also good to kill fleas.
I would use the Borax seeking to rid an area of my kitchen of carpenter ants. The ant traps have not worked to rid the area of those destructive pests and I have not yet been unable to locate their “home base” to date.
I would see if it helps my water and clean my whites. We have the WORST hard water. It turns orange and stains our laundry, even with a water softener and ‘iron out’ salt. Maybe borax is what we’re missing!
I use borax every time I wash laundry. So these would for sure save me some money.
I use borax for cleaning laundry, cleaning the dishwasher, in the bathroom, everywhere and would make could use of this
I would use the Borax with my laundry, but I also would use it to make slime with Elmer’s glue for my kids. I used it once for this and my kids LOVED it
!
I’ve been wanting to try Borax but haven’t yet. I have hard water so I would love to try it on our laundry!
I would give the borax to my mom …. She has an ongoing ant problem and she’s tried everything, and I am not crazy about her using all the chemicals
I love Borax! I love to take baths and wanted to find something to clean our bathtub with that wasn’t so harsh on my lungs as a commercial cleaner. So I sprinkle some vinegar on our tub, then use a mixture of borax, baking soda and salt to scrub the gunk off. It works really well and gets the job done quick.
I would like to try Borax in my laundry.
I have wanted to make my own laundry detergent with bora. This would be a perfect way to get me to actually do it!
Well I have used it for ants works great. also make my own detergent:-)
I would love to use Borax in my laundry. Thanks!
Ive never heard of Borax before. I always love to try new things though. Especially with the great reviews everyone is giving it!
I’d use it for laundry booster first. Then probably to clean the bathtubs.
After reading everyones response, definitely going to try it on ants, in son’s stinky shoes and the tub to see if it can help with soap scum. Glad you did this review.
I have never used Borax before. But I would definitely try it with my laundry. Now I’ll have to look up what else to do w/it!
I’ve seen it in stores but have never tried the product. Willing to try anything when ants invade.
I’m a Pinterest-addict and will use the Borax to make my own laundry soap.
Borax has been around for a long time but I have never tried it. My laundry can always use a “boost”.
Would like to try it in the laundry, I’ve heard good things about it! And I love that it worked on the ants we always get ants in the springtime!
Would love to give my laundry a boost!
Rachel- you might want to pour some ammonia along the foundation where the ants are
coming in at. That will take care of the problem in a jiffy from the outside.
I’ve never tried Borax, but would love to try some of the uses for it I’ve seen on Pinterest
I would love to use the Borax on our ant situation too, thanks for sharing the tips.
I use Borax all the time! I make our laundry detergent and it gets our clothing nice and clean! LOVE the smell, too!!!!!!
I would like to try Borax for those stubborn laundry stains that don’t seem to budge!
I would definitely try to make home made laundry detergent if I won this.
I would like to use the Borax to make homemade laundry detergent. I recently started using it with my Tide and the clothes are so soft. I just ran out, so this would be a GREAT win! Especially since laundry never seems to be complete for my family of 6. :-/
I would love to win this for laundry and it is the ingredient for home-made slime that I make for the grandkids.
My cousin just pinned some homemade ceramic tile grout cleaner using borax that I would really like to try.
She also pinned a homemade liquid magic eraser using borax.
We could use some for the ants down here….will try your way!
I would use the Borax for a science experiment in my second grade class. It can be used to make slime. We tried to make the slime without it and it was a disaster. The kids would love it
I have always wanted to try to make my own detergent and this would actually give me the motivation to do it!
We used borax to make homemade slime ( recipe on the museum of science and industry website). Great home science project for kids. Can you say polymer?
I use Borax to make our laundry detergent…it gets clothes so clean and fresh! I’d love to get it for free!