5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Use Homemade Laundry Detergent
My goal of this heading isn’t to give you an exact recipe, but to break down the common ingredients in homemade laundry soaps.
Most homemade laundry ‘detergents’ are made up of water softeners like baking soda, washing soda, and borax and a cleaning agent which is typically a grated bar of soap.
The goal of the water softener is to… you guessed it! Soften the water. You might have heard the terms hard water and soft water which has to do with the level of minerals like calcium and magnesium in the water.
The most common water softeners used in homemade laundry soap borax and washing soda, but they’re marketed as laundry BOOSTERS because they are meant to aid a detergent not replace one.
If you have really hard water, like I do in California, using a homemade laundry soap is even worse because the high levels of calcium and magnesium make it almost impossible for the soap to wash free from the textiles.
While the laundry boosters help some, its not an appropriate replacement for detergent.
http://www.boatdetergent.com/soap/laundry-soap/