STOP using HOMEMADE Laundry Soap?!?!

I love making homemade laundry detergent, but is it bad to use it? I discuss the potential that homemade laundry detergent is unhealthy for us and bad for our washing machines. What do you think?

Here is the blog I referenced in the video:

Etsy Shop

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[LivingTraditionsHomestead]

Great discussion, everyone! Thanks so much and keep it up!

[singingone]

Not having this. I have been making my own laundry/dish detergent and body soap for years. I am 71 years old. My clothes/body are really clean, my old washer never stops washing and I am not coating my body with sodium laurel sulfate and other nasty ingredients and terrible fragrance which make me sick to smell. It costs pennies on the dollar and nothing will change my mind.

[MrAutodidactic]

To remove any residual soap or dirt from laundry and also to make clothes brighter and softer, simply add white vinegar to the rinse cycle. Problem solved for homemade and store bought soap.

[shannonscopper]

Chemicals? I think the only people homemade laundry detergent is hurting is the people who's pocketbooks are taking the hit.

[hfortenberry]

UPDATE: You folks are awesome!! Thank you for all the recipes!! 💗

ORIGINAL: Okay folks, please, if you are going to post that you have been doing this for years and it WORKS for you, then PLEASE share the recipe. It does us no good when you just tease us. Several people have said "I have done it for X years and it works GREAT for me" and then they sign off without giving any ingredients. If I find a recipe that works, I will come back here and share it for everyone. Wish me luck!

[carmencoburn]

I use only dry ingredients and I use Zote. I don’t turn it into a liquid. I am not going back to commercial laundry detergent. My family loves not having itchy skin and the clothes are clean and fresh.

[livinglife]

I’ve made and used homemade liquid laundry soap for 25 years and I’ve owned only two washers. I’ve raised 6 children and a few strays Into adulthood so I’ll stick to my own. I do use vinegar in my rinse water.

[reikilynx]

Hi, new to your channel and the title caught my eye. This is a very touchy subject for many. But before throwing the baby out with the bath water, so to speak, I have an incredible share here. We live in the Rockies and have a really hard time with...really hard water. Tons of minerals! Heres' a solution which works the same as 'stripping' and for the same reason I make my own soap, to save A LOT of money
and I know what's in it.
An elderly neighbor lady who lived her all her life told me to use a couple magnets in the washer, sizes like you find on refrig. magnets. The button types about the size of a quarter. She said just put a couple on each side of drum. Low and behold it works! They attract and hold the minerals and you clean them once a month, every couple weeks in beginning, by soaking overnight in apple cider vinegar. In the beginning of trying, I had to clean once a week, like I said we have VERY hard water. But after a couple weeks, they removed the brown murky garbage in clothes and now I only do once a month! She has always made her own soap, and wow, can we learn from the wisdom of people who know the old ways, before all our 'modern conveniences' were so handy :) Thank you for the video.

[joelovando]

No no no no you've been misinformed I've been making soap for years and I've also been using DIY laundry detergent for a little over a year. The soap you add to your laundry detergent has already gone through saponification. I personally use zote soap but whatever soap you use has already been through this process already. So unless you're adding two cups of lard or two cups of cocoa butter into your DIY laundry soap you have nothing to worry about .

[manwithbeers]

Sounds like bunk to me Sarah, As a water treatment professional and home soaper I can tell you there is nothing your soap cant do, that a commercial version does. Add more borax and use a more cleansing soap formula like a coconut oil based recipe, I do add oxy powder to my washer for brighter colors. Water deposits are from hard water or insufficient surfactant. Use more washing soda to counter that.

[leotheindigomergoddess]

It’s all about money they just want you to stop making yours and buy their🌻🌼🌸🌿🌿🌿

[lusciousleo]

I've never had an issue with my homemade soap. My clothes come out smelling fresher from no residue than they did with commercial detergents. Over soaping is the issue 90%of the time in my experience.

[erinhewitt]

I don’t believe her. There must be something behind this story.

[jeanrichards]

I actually read this article the other day before you posted this! I don't know if you use Borax in your detergent recipe but here's what I found. Borax is a surfactant, also known as an emulsifier. Emulsifiers hold particles in suspension keeping things like dirt and grease (which washing soda lifts) from redepositing on the clothes. As for the soap, I currently use feels naptha or zote (zote smells better, but nothing beats Fels for removing tough odors). I know people who have used this homemade laundry soap for decades and are farmers... very satisfied with how it cleans. We have used commercial detergents on and off and my tide loving husband recently requested we switch back to homemade exclusively b/c his job is very dirty/greasy and he feels his clothes come out better with the homemade stuff. If you're worried about buildup in your washer you can just do an empty wash with a high concentration of washing soda and Borax to get any deposits out. That's my 2 cents.

[OurLittleHomestead]

She misinformed you and sent you to a Tide company post!

[thepeff]

While I certainly buy the idea that regular soap is ineffective I still feel this whole "too complicated to make at home" is probably just something to stifle DIY culture.

[barbaranelson]

Great discussion but I have a little story for ya I have a front loading washer and never had a odor problem with home made laundry detergent, I uses felsnaptha laundry soap I changed to storer bought soap being lazy and in a weeks time I had a horrible odor in my washer it was the storer bought soap I changed back to home made the odor went completely away

[nancyfahey]

I throw a cup of vinegar in my rinse no matter what detergent I use.

[gigiregister]

I have been making my laundry detergent five years. I have used like zoto soap- but I put half bars, one at a time in the microwave for two minutes on high. Let it cool completely and it crumbles into small fine partials. it brakes down the fat particular in the soap more. When I bought a new washer the rep told me to use a lowsudsing detergent. I told
Him I made my own. He said that was absolutely the best for your machine.
Not ready to give it up!!

[karenpage]

Many, many years ago I took Consumer Science in high school. Forgive me for not remembering the full details, but we learned that detergents are created with either negative or positive ions, which react to stains and smells when using warm water... which was key. At the time, cold water detergents were just becoming a thing, and we learned how exciting the science was behind how they were specially formulated so that they didn't require warm water. I honestly think that detergents get a bad rap mostly because the general population doesn't understand what the ingredients are and why they are included, so they can make informed decisions. I feel like the danger of detergents is in their fragrance additives and I choose brands with fragrance free options. BTW, we can dislike Tide all we want, but in that class we did a comparison test with samples of 14 brands of detergents. Tide won in every stain and smell category. I don't remember much else from that class but that unit remains with me today.