Recently my daughter ruined her work shirts by pouring laundry detergent directly on them. No matter what I did I could not remove those bright green stains. That got me thinking about what exactly is in that laundry detergent. When I looked at the ingredients I was surprised to find they aren’t listed on the bottle. I had to do a search online to find the ingredients, there are 21 ingredients, that seems like a lot for laundry, especially the one that is a “colorant,” guess that’s a friendlier name for what it really is which is a dye. Most of the ingredients seem safe but who knows what the verdict will be ten years from now?
Everywhere else in my house I use green products to clean, even my toilets are now clean and shiny without toxic chemicals, why not my clothes? Your skin is the largest organ in your body and it is covered by clothing most of the time. Whatever we are washing our clothing with is in constant contact with our skin.
I guess I’ve been worried about the effectiveness, not just of cleaning but also of germ fighting for things like face cloths and kitchen towels. Since I’m not physically scrubbing the clothes I won’t know if they are clean until I take them out of the washer. It makes me a little leery to try but I’m going to take the chance.
If you Google homemade laundry detergent you will find tons of recipes, both liquid and powder, all made from the same three basic ingredients, soap, borax and washing soda. Doesn’t sound too complicated. I’m going to try a liquid and a powder to see which I like best and I think I will add some tea tree oil because one reason I haven’t given up my laundry soap is that I’m addicted to the smell.
I think with the tea tree oil and good, old fashioned sun to dry my clothes they will smell wonderful. I’ll update you on my results in a later post.