To those of you who have expressed your desire to play my Frugal Amish Game by making your own laundry detergent, I present to you this recent post by the inventor of said detergent.
I have not noticed the buildup on anything except the diapers (it made them waterproof – not a good quality in diapers!). So I am now exclusively using regular detergent on them, but still using the homemade detergent on my clothes. This is what I think I will do: When I start to notice the buildup, I will start alternating, one wash with regular detergent, the next with homemade. Both clean the clothes fine; one just happens to leave soap residue behind due to the hardness of the water and the kind of soap used. I figure the regular detergent will wash away the homemade degergent’s residue.
I wish I could find a kind of soap that doesn’t cause buildup. What do the Tide manufacturers use?
So I will still be saving money, just not as much.
P.S. Supposedly, if you have soft water, you’re fine. Anybody out there use homemade detergent with soft water?
Beth,
About a week ago my mom called to tell me a couple household tips. We have a couple of dishtowels that don’t absorb water. My mom, knowing this, told me about an article she saw in one of her magazines. One of the readers would go to her daughter’s house and when she would shower and use her daughter’s bath towels, they wouldn’t absorb the water. Over time it got worse and worse and started leaving a film on her. One way or another she discovered that her daughter, instead of laundry detergent, was only using fabric softener. Her daughter, all these years didn’t know she wasn’t using a laundry detergent. So what was the solution? Vinegar. Washing her clothing with a little vinegar with laundry detergent took the film off and I am wondering if you haven’t had problems with the homemade detergent since you use vinegar.
Oh, and I have been using laundry detergent. 🙂
That’s crazy! She didn’t know she wasn’t using detergent? She thought fabric softener was a kind of two-in-one? Or she thought it was detergent? Wow.
Anyway, I was using vinegar with my diapers and they still got waterproofed, but I never did notice a film. Only some of the diapers were affected, though, and I’ve heard from others that that type is easily waterproofed. Maybe the vinegar did save me.
However, I still use fabric softener with my clothes and was planning to until I ran out, then switch to vinegar. It was going to be another frugal Amish blog to tell you all you could save money by using vinegar instead of fabric softener. (I *promise* it won’t make your clothes smell like vinegar, I use it for my diapers and they do *not* smell like vinegar when they’re done).
Anyway, like I said, I wasn’t going to change my laundry routine until I noticed a film. I’ll keep you updated to see if it ever develops. 😀
Thanks for the tip!
I know this is a really old post, but..
1) I have soft water
2) My cloth diapers still get buildup (I use one of the “Free and Clear” detergents.. and note, when I was at my mother’s house and used Tide they got AWFUL buildup)
3) to strip it off, I use.. dish detergent. The plainest, most un-fancy kind out there. Dawn, or equivalent. I read about this at diaperpin.com or maybe mothering.com in the diaper section. It works.
Another way to tell it’s needed, besides the diapers becoming “waterproof” is that they also start getting REALLY stinky when pee-soaked.