Why I WON’T Use Homemade Laundry Soap
The Lesson I Learned about Homemade Laundry Soap
I have seen SO many posts over the years about saving money by making your own homemade laundry soap. I think it’s a good idea – in theory. However, I learned a tough lesson about this more than 25 years ago. My mother-in-law found some laundry soap that was on a “great sale” and she gave me some of it.
I was a busy working Mom with a toddler, so didn’t really think too much about it. I just dumped in load after load of laundry with this bargain basement laundry soap. However, after a few weeks, I started to notice that all our clothes had started to fade. Our jeans looked dingy, my husband’s dark work blue work shirts looked about two shades lighter than the ones I hadn’t washed in this detergent, and worst of all, some of my expensive work clothes were looking noticeably faded and dingy. Oooops!
This crappy soap ruined just about every piece of clothing we owned. The sad part was, we were a young couple on a budget – the clothes looked really awful, but we still had to wear them for months and months. That makes for a memorable lesson so now when I see these posts for all the homemade laundry soap, I just pass them by.
It’s a Risky Way to Save Money
That’s the problem with something like this. Yes, you may save a few bucks by using a homemade laundry soap, and you may manage to find a recipe for it that is awesome. Maybe it’s healthier or better for your clothes than a commercial soap, but it’s definitely a risk to save a relatively small amount of money. What if you pull someone’s soap recipe off some blog post, and it’s just a little bit “off” as this one was?
I’m don’t know about you, but I’m no scientist. I have no clue what goes into a good or bad detergent. Do you? And when you put a load of laundry in the washer, it may have several hundred dollars worth of clothes in it. And if you happen to be a busy Mom like me, who isn’t paying close attention, it could be a very expensive mistake. Yikes….
Here are some other posts you may enjoy:
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