DIY Laundry Soap in the Tropics - The New Possibility

Click HERE to Watch on YouTube

This video documents my ongoing quest to develop a DIY laundry soap that performs reliably in tropical climates—where high humidity, heat, and mineral-rich water can sabotage even the most promising recipes. Whether you’re in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, or coastal Florida, this is an eco-friendly, cost-effective laundry recipe for hot, humid conditions. Please subscribe and ensure 'all' notifications are turned on to follow my quest.

Recipe in the video description on YouTube, click to watch.

Gates, Butterflies and Confessions of a Tropical Life

 

Our solar-powered gate? Well, it works- kinda. Then I went to the butterfly sanctuary while Brad had a massage—where every wing flutter felt like magic… Let’s get real: living in the tropics comes with its own set of challenges—In this video, I confess to my homemade strugges and we now have a store! SHOPMY Store: https://shopmy.us/shop/homesteadgonerogue WILD Deodorant https://shopmy.us/shop/collections/5815518 Join us every Sunday as we build our Homestead, enjoy the peace of nature, discover new places, and celebrate life’s special moments in Panama. Our Channel shows you exactly what day-to-day living looks like—not the Instagram-perfect moments, but the messy, beautiful reality.

Planting Our Patio Garden & Making Homemade Fabric Softener in Panama

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Planting our patio garden and making homemade fabric softener for doing laundry in Panama is a fun and eco-friendly way to live sustainably. In this video, we’ll show you how to grow your own herbs and vegetables on your balcony or patio, even if you have limited space. We’ll also share a simple recipe for homemade fabric softener that’s safe for your family and the environment. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced gardener, this guide will help you create a beautiful and functional outdoor space.

Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit the bell for more gardening tips and DIY projects! Join us as we look into nature, discover new places, and celebrate life’s special moments in Panama. Don’t forget to subscribe for more travel inspiration and hidden gems in Panama!

✅ About Gone Rogue. Welcome to Gone Rogue! We’re Katie and Brad, a Canadian couple sharing our lives through Day In The Life videos so our mothers - and now you - can follow along on our journey. In 2025, we embarked on the adventure of a lifetime: selling almost everything we own and retiring to Panama with just four suitcases. On our channel, you’ll see everything from our day-to-day life, homesteading adventures, gardening, and herbal and medicinal lifestyle experiments, to the ups and downs of moving abroad. We recently purchased a home with enough land to continue living sustainably and creatively. Let’s explore, learn, and grow together. For Business inquiries, please use the contact information below: 📩 Email: theroguelesstravelled@gmail.com 🔔 If you love travel, homesteading, & adventurous living, hit subscribe! Stay tuned for our journey in Panama, life updates, and all the challenges.

https://www.youtube.com/@theroguelesstravelled9042/?sub_confirmation=1

What I Do When I'm Relaxing My Back

Having thrown my back out 3 weeks ago while sweeping/mopping and having recovered for 2 days only to crash down on my butt when the hammock collapses, I need to just do menial puttering jobs around the house - nothing too exerting. I make some Yogurt, Haymaker's Punch and a quick lunch when time gets away. Plus, a message from our gardener means a change is needed. Join us every Sunday as we build our Homestead, enjoy the peace of nature, discover new places, and celebrate life’s special moments in Panama. Don’t forget to subscribe for more travel inspiration and hidden gems in Panama! 🔗 Stay Connected With Us. 🔔𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐮𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬.

 

Busy day on the homestead

Thursday Dec 23rd

Having 1.5 Gallons of raw milk in the fridge, I decided to skim the cream off the top and make butter...

Churning cream to butter

Finished butter (spoon for scale)

I pulled out a load from Betty. 

1 tray of 18 farm eggs, 1 tray of lemon peel, 2 trays with 1 Liter of raw milk on each.

Egg load

I also had over 60 eggs on standby and so I prepped 3 trays (18 eggs per tray) and 1 tray of crushed egg shells which I feed back to the chickens to return the calcium to them. This load will go in first thing in the morning.

While I was waiting for the butter to finish, I figured I'd start a quick loaf of bread.

Voila, soft, chewy and delicious

My ever faithful assistant was at the ready to clean up any mess

Brad found a great deal on chicken breast and turkeys at Superstore yesterday. I threw the chicken in a crockpot with chicken broth, garlic, salt & pepper and put them in the oven for an hour and 15 min.

First load of 7 chicken breasts

Added a second load of 8 chicken breasts for a total of 15

I then split the breasts to thin them slightly (with Brad's help) and put them on 3 trays to feed to Betty along with 1 tray of the chicken broth I cooked it all in (waste not want not). 

I had time to kill while waiting on the second batch of chicken breast so I made some Lemon & Lavender body lotion. 

Once cooled

1 for my Mother

1 for Brad's Mother

1 for me

To be perfectly clear, this is not a normal day around here. It was a day when I had no need to leave the house and so I was able to get some stuff done. 

Tomorrow -- ordinary laundry day.... 

But Saturday...

Merry Christmas one and all!!

Fine hair info update

 You'll recall on April 26th I wrote a post about making shampoo and conditioner..... you can find it here.

!!! IT WORKS AMAZING !!!

I had added it to our already in use store bought bottle for pumping purposes so it took a few days to come through, like 3.... I noticed the difference right away, my hair felt thicker while washing it the 2nd day. I know that sounds unreasonable but I had actually forgotten about the stuff I'd made and when I realized something felt different I remembered my stuff was in the bottle. 

Same with the leave-in conditioner. My hair looks and feels amazing and actually stays that way most of the day if I don't put it in a ponytail or bun. For 50 years it would look like this for 30-60 min and then turn mousy brown and lay flat on my head, I hated my hair. 

So, if you have fine hair -- or even if you don't, I highly recommend making your own shampoo and conditioners. The recipes are in this post . For example: leave in conditioner is just water with small amounts of coconut milk and fractionated coconut oil - in a blender. Could not be simpler, or cheaper.

Growth, Shampoo and Leave-in Conditioner

I had a good look around the greenhouse and deck on Sunday to see how my starts are doing. I'm still waiting for decent overnight temperatures and we're going through a cold spell currently so they are getting nice and big in the greenhouse which is fine because it will give them a fighting chance against the enemies of the garden...

Spinach

Lettuce

I put this tomatoe in a hanging basket but naturally its the wrong type of tomatoe for that, blonde moment. I will pick up 2 cherry tomatoe plants somewhere for these... I have another planter somewhere...

Brad created his own hanging baskets for the first time this year (we kept the baskets from last year)

A couple of radishes are almost ready to harvest, I'm told when the crown is 1 inch...

Greenhouse planter box. I recently added 2 Brussel Sprouts

Potatoes are coming

Strawberry plants have recovered from the winter, I pruned them and they are looking good for another round of giving us goodness.

HorseRadish

Not sure if I mentioned it but someone was selling horseradish on FB and so I ordered a couple... and planted them. They are one of those 'can't get rid of'' plants so I put them into 2 large pots on the deck.

Shampoo and Leave-In Conditioner

Again, super simple: In blender... 

Shampoo =     1/2C Coconut Milk, 1/2C Castile Soap, 1 tsp Oil (I used Olive), 1 tsp Honey, 1 tsp Vegetable Glycerine, 10 drops Vitamin E Oil, 15 drops of any Essential Oil

Leave-In Conditioner= 1/4C Filtered Water (any type, I used our Berkey water), 1 tbsp Coconut Milk (yep from a can), 1/4 tsp Fractionated Coconut Oil (health food store)

I doubled the recipe and the picture shows what I made in jars, I have since put them into previously emptied pump bottles that I saved, as shown above.

Protective bird netting appears to be working, no further damage after a few days. Seems to be working for the slugs as well.

Remember that 67mm of rain we were getting by Wednesday?

We got 2.6mm and no more rain today or tomorrow... so they were close LOLOL

More about this later, but 25mm equals 1 inch of rain.

Meant to be a rainy day.... not so much.

As it was meant to be a rainy day yesterday I decided to do some stuff around the house. I've had 12 lbs of butter taking up valuable real estate in our fridge so it was a good day to deal with it... Time to clarify some butter ( also called Ghee)

 

Literally just put the butter in a pot on medium.

Once completely melted turn heat to medium-low and leave for ~ 10 minutes...

... until you can see clear through to the bottom when you draw back the fuzz on top (do not scrape bottom at any point in this recipe - the stuff on bottom will wipe out easily at the end)

Run through cheesecloth

Pour into 1/2 pint jars (or whatever you have). This is from 1 lb of butter. I managed to get 6 lbs done throughout the day yesterday.

I also decided to try making laundry soap. That was even easier than the butter! 

Chop 1 bar of soap into 'bite size' pieces and put in blender with 2C washing soda (health food store), then blend until completely mixed.

Put in package. Use: 2 tsp / Load

I haven't tried this yet but will wash the bedding today and let you know what we think of it tomorrow.

Next up, body wash. 

Also super easy. 1/3C Castille Soap, 1/3C Honey, 1/3C Oil (Olive, Almond or fractionated Coconut) and ~ 30 drops of any essential oil you like. Brad likes peppermint, so I went with that this time. I did lavender last time - too much lavender, so its a tad too girly, I think...

At that point (Noon) it still wasn't raining, so.... I grabbed my handy basket carrier guy and off we went foraging in the woods of our property.

Sisal, Dandelion heads, Plantain and Gypsy flower

Also grabbed a separate basket of Bracken fiddleheads.

I know what I said the other day... but its there and it IS edible so we got some more. I'm just trying to get these plants set into my brain so I can learn them and gathering them will help me remember what is edible and what is not. (Remember I had a stroke at 32 (gheeze 20 years ago already!) and my memory leaves a lot to be desired.

I also found - though not in season yet: 

Salmonberry

Cascade Barberry

Cherry Plum

Red Huckleberry

Bigleaf Maple (for honey)

Creambush

Red Elderberry

Pink Honeysuckle

Pacific Blacksnakeroot

Brad made lasagna for supper.... many suppers...

We gave some to neighbours and still have 15 left... 

While I absolutely hate the mess he makes doing this, I do like having them handy since we can cook them from frozen... considering how often I forget to take something out.... Oh snap... better do that now for tonight's supper!

For the record, we had a heavy mist about 10pm last night and it clearly rained a tad overnight but I can't see inside my catchment bucket outside until I'm beautified and out there. According to 'those who have no clue' we got 0.4mm (0.015 in) yesterday and 1.6mm (0.06 in) today so far....