DIY Laundry Detergent

Is Homemade Laundry Detergent really the answer?

 

I love homemade. You know what you are getting. You can skip the toxins and save money. A winning situation-unless of course you DIY Laundry Detergentare talking about laundry detergent.

 

Last week I began addressing laundry detergent at the request of many. In my quest for looking for a truly safe but effective laundry detergent I tried making my own several years ago. My son immediately had a reaction. Why? Borax.

Borax has sound its way into a lot of homemade “nontoxic” detergent recipes. Borax scores a 6 on the EWG ingredient toxic rating. Although “natural occurring” it can cause organ system toxicity and is considered a moderate hazard. My son, who was about a year at the time, broke out in a rash so I discontinued using it.

 

I tried other detergents (including an essential oil company one I wanted to love but it just was not getting my clothes clean and I could feel a residue on them. Later, still researching, I tried another powder form homemade detergent (no borax included). It definitely worked better than the detergent from the essential oil company I had been using since there was a visible brightness in my towels I hadn’t realized had been missing. Unfortunately it still didn’t seem to be getting the job done 100%. Doing yet again more research I found a few interesting posts:

 

The full article may be read here:

http://butterbeliever.com/homemade-laundry-detergent-soap-diy/

Some highlights:

-Soap residue in your washing machine can cause damage. Machines are designed to use detergents NOT soaps. (Most home made are made with castile soap of one form or another)

-Soap residue gets stuck to your clothing trapping dirt, and bacteria.

-Fabrics are not effectively cleaned by soaps unless you were applying elbow grease and friction like back in the day J

-Most homemade recipes contain mostly water softeners such as borax, baking soda and washing soda) they do not actually get your clothes clean.

Then there is this…people who used homemade detergent for a period of time then stripped the “clean” laundry and this was the water left behind.

http://www.fortheloveofclean.com/laundry-love/the-bad-the-worse-and-the-ugly/testimonials-from-former-users-of-homemade-soap-photo-gallery/

 

I know a lot of you are loving your essential oil based laundry detergent or your homemade laundry detergent but it may be wise to put it to your own test. The link below gives instructions on how to “strip” your clean laundry to see what’s really left behind. If it’s really working you should get great results to share!

 

http://www.fortheloveofclean.com/laundry-love/special/strip-deep-clean-or-sanitize/strip/

DIY Laundry Detergent