I had forgotten just how many applications Borax has... I used it faithfully years ago--in laundry, garbage disposal, trash bins, on carpets, in closets, in vehicles--it's effective anywhere dank odors can accumulate, and when you've got good borax powder on hand, you've got an economical, honest, odor free, chemically simple and stable all-purpose helper. It controls spiders and bugs from invading boxes in storage and in the garage, is useful in keeping cat boxes fresh; it's great in barns and stables, on concrete... Ever notice how aged bed linens, no matter how crisp, bleached and Febreezed when you stored them, after a few weeks folded on the shelf you go to change sheets and eww, there's that slight funky wiff of morning breath and scalp? (Yes, that happens to everyone lol) Makes you want to return them to the laundry, or maybe donate them to the rag-bag or charity, but don't! Just start adding borax to your washer, and no more stink. I even make sachets (from cut sections of old panty hose) filled with equal parts clay litter and borax. Just pop into winter boots and sneakers - - after a long day this draws the moisture and odor out like a magnet! Once you've explored its possibilities, there's no replacing it around the house. However, QUALITY MATTERS. Over time, unfortunately, the product on store shelves seemed to have increasingly declined, became more chalk- powdery, dusty, less crystallized, and not (frankly) effectively worth the mess it now leaves behind. So when I came across Millard's Borax here on Amazon, I was skeptical but hopeful... And was not disappointed! :) Once again I have a go-to around the house. It dissolves nicely in the washer, it's clean and bright, and no carpet powder can match it - -did I mention flea control? Plus no clogging the vacuum with superfine dust, no crusty residue left on countertops, no blobs of undissolved product in the washer or on wet clothes... It's even septic-safe and eco-friendly. What's not to love? Add that it comes in a sturdy plastic bag, so no soaked cardboard sticking to the shelf or useless bricks of the stuff in the bottom of the box.
I could go on, but...
Well, I hadn't intended to write a commercial, I haven't been compensated or been given discounts or free samples of anything from anyone--but when I received an nice email from the Millard family thanking me for trying their product and asking if I'd give an honest review, I felt moved to do so. In fact, if subscribe- and - save is an option, I'm going to sign up! The money I'll save in the long run will more than pay the bill. :)

I had been using Twenty Mules borax for several years, but became more and more unhappy with its packaging. Twenty Mules Borax comes in a cardboard box, which is not moisture proof. I would end up with a densely clumped-up box of borax. It was a mess to get the hardened borax out of the box and then roll and/or hammer the big clumps into the powder form it should be in. Milliard's packaging is so much better and I am glad I found the product. The bag is sturdy and does not seem to allow moisture in. If clumps do form, they are easy to break into fine powder with no mess. I will buy more Borax from Milliard because of the packaging, the fineness of the borax, and a 5 pound bag costs less than what the 20 Mules 4-pound box costs.

We've been seeing increasing numbers of carpenter ants in our home over the last three years, to the point it was getting pretty bad and we were thinking about calling in a pest control company (something we didn't want to do). We also have a cat who loves licking baseboards, (I know, we don't understand it either), so we definitely didn't want to use anything toxic! A quick online search gave us the recipe for a non-toxic carpenter ant bait made with boric acid, so we bought this product. We followed the instructions (below), and 24 hours later, we found one flattened and very dead ant, where we usually saw many.

That's it. Just one.

There are now zero carpenter ants in the house, and it's been over two weeks. We've also put the bait out on our wood deck (where the cat can't get it, and the rain won't either), by using an inverted margerine tub with "doors" cut into it all around the outside.

Here's the recipe: Mix 2/3 cup boric acid with 1/3 cup powdered sugar in a ziplock, then spooned the dry mixture into small caps (from the recyling bin) and place under furniture and heat registers, or wherever you've seen ants (but out of reach of playful pets).

Then we added another step: After looking at the powder in the caps, we couldn't figure out how the ants were going to carry it to the nest -- it was so powdery! We decided to use a small syringe or eye-dropper to drip small drops of water into each cap (you don't want to flood it!). Over night, the powder absorbed the water and dried to a hard crystaline consistency, which we then used a screw driver to carefully crack into small chunks. Then we put the caps where the cat couldn't find them.

AND? It worked like a charm! No more ants! And no costly, toxic pest control!

I started using Borax powder over a year ago to boost cleaning efficiency of my laundry. This Borax powder is fantastic at helping keep my laundry clean and fresh. The powder does not clump and does not "puff" into the air whenever I'm scooping it out. I'm sure there's probably some technical term for that, but you know what I mean by that. It's when powder particles are hurled into the air by any disturbance of the package or tool used to gather it, be it scoop, spoon, or cup, then they hang in the air so you can get them into your nose and mouth. Well, this doesn't do that, and I'm grateful. I normally empty the package into a large plastic container, so I can't speak to the long term packaging. Have used this powder 7-10 times a week for every load of laundry in a HE front loading washer. I have this product on subscription and am so glad to have found it.

The preface: I used this as ant killer, and it worked phenomenally. You don't understand - I had a number of pest service companies come out over the last four months to try and eradicate these little "sugar ants" from my home. The ants were after water, and not really food, it seemed, because they were in our bathrooms (where we certainly never bring food or drinks of any kind), and around our window sill and kitchen sink, and would completely bypass food on the counter. They were a real nuisance - I would find them in my water glass after setting it down for 15 minutes, and in my espresso maker's water reservoir, or crawling up my arm. Because of them, we had been eating out a lot, since I could not kill them fast enough to make dinner without them amassing all over the counter.

After paying a ridiculous amount of money, and obviously some of my sanity, I finally began to do what I should have in the beginning, which is to look up home remedies. While some of the recipes called for a 1:4 borax to honey mix, I made it 3:1, and it was a goopy mess. First, I microwaved the honey a bit, so it would be easier to try and homogenize the mix. I put some of the mix in mini sauce plates up against the walls where their trail was (just one plate per trail). Then, near the window where they seemed to be entering, I dropped some directly onto the sill.

For the first four or five days, they continued to prance around, and mock the mix. However, in subsequent days, I would only notice a handful, here and there. By day 10, they were ALL gone. I could hardly believe it.

There were some casualties - apparently plants do not like borax, or at least not in the concentration I used (I put 1:4 borax + water in some pots that had ants living in them). I'm sure there are many other ways that results could have been achieved without killing the houseplants, but now you know what worked and didn't work! :)