10 Best Washing Powder For Sweat Stains

Best Washing Powder For Sweat Stains in 2023

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

Cheap and Easy Homemade Laundry Detergent

cheap and easy methods of making homemade laundry detergents with tips on how to remove stains and care for laundry using ordinary household items, most of them already in your kitchen!

Still, being an avid do- it- yourself fan, my curiosity was peaked. I decided to do a little research and realized, I was completely wrong in my assumptions! Not only did it seem easy to do, but the cost savings for my large family would be tremendous. But still, the question loomed. Would homemade laundry detergent clean as well as the store bought ones? So I decided to experiment.

After scouring the Internet for information I came to the conclusion that most detergents contained a variety of two key ingredients, borax and lye. Now this put me off a bit. I mean, I would have to be a chemist to work with those ingredients right? Just how dangerous would that be? Having small children in the house I am always overly cautious about chemicals of any kind. Upon further research I discovered that it was actually pretty easy to use these ingredients with the proper safety measures. Borax was not nearly as toxic as I had first believed and I didn't even have to work directly with straight lye to mix my own home- made detergent.

Now the question remained. Which recipe among the plethora of ones I had found would work best for my family? After much research, checking various web sites for feasibly cheap recipes with ingredients that I had access to, and reading the numerous users responses to them, I settled on one very basic recipe to try out. It contained three main ingredients that were easily located at my local retail store in the laundry section and comparatively cheap as I could use small amounts of the ingredients to make large batches of the detergent. The recipe I started with can be found on the web site thefamilyhomestead.com. The one listed is for a liquid detergent but you can do a quick Google search to find similar recipes if you prefer to use the powdered type detergent. It seemed to clean just as well as the store bought detergent at literally a fraction of the cost for light to moderately soiled items, which describes most of my laundry.

Being the extreme tight wad I am though, I decided to go the extra step and explore more alternatives. I wanted to know, if for instance, I ran out of one or more of the ingredients, did I have items lying around the house I could use as a substitute in a pinch? Upon a little further reading, I found that I did indeed have commonly found items that would do. So I whipped up a batch of detergent trying the alternate ingredients suggested by different web sites and gave them a try. Here's what I found:

For washing soda: Baking soda is recommended as a substitute when dealing with lightly soiled items and for delicate items. Since washing soda has a much higher PH balance than baking soda, it was not recommended for heavily soiled or badly stained items. I found when I doubled the amount of washing soda needed for the recipe with baking soda, the home made detergent worked equally well for light to moderately soiled items. Since most of my laundry falls in this category, I considered this to be a good substitute. I also followed a suggestion of heating the baking soda in the oven to raise the PH balance. Note that once you do this, you CANNOT use the soda for baking, it causes it to become unusable for consumption. I found the instructions on Ehow.com. It worked quite well in the batch I made for more heavily soiled items. Also, if you decide to try this, make sure you have the time to monitor the oven closely as I found out, leaving it unattended can allow the soda to burn and gives off a ton of smoke. (Alas, trial and error). Other suggested substitutes include soda ash (found in many pool products) and the product OxiClean, because it contains sodium carbonate (the chemical name for washing soda).

For lye: The main ingredient in just about any soap is lye. Now you can go all out on the DIY limb here and create your own lye using hardwood ashes and constructing an old fashioned lye dripper (there are several web sites that have excellent easy to understand instructions for the hard core DIY er), but there are much easier ways to incorporate lye into your recipe. If you do not want to work directly with lye itself, adding a bar of ordinary bath soap will do the trick just as well. I took the suggestion of shaving and boiling one whole bar of Ivory brand soap to substitute for the 1/ 3 bar of Fels Naptha listed in the original recipe. I did find however that this made the final product very bubbly and solidified the suds somewhat. I discovered that just about any large bar bath soap can be used, though user comments on how pleased they were with results did vary. Another suggestion is to use castile soap, or using your own homemade soaps. There are also many recipes on the Internet for creating no lye soaps.

Unfortunately, the only ingredient I could not find a reasonable substitute for was borax, though I did find several web sites that expressed the borax was more useful as a whitening agent than an actual cleaner. The one batch I made without the borax did not seem to clean as well in my experience, but results seem to vary from user to user.

Some people may prefer to add fragrance to their detergent. This can be done simply by adding a ½ a cup of essential oil for whatever scent that strikes your fancy to the detergent mix. Popular scents like lilac are easily found in most hobby shops that carry supplies for homemade soap making. You can also add lemon or orange scent by squeezing the juice of one whole fruit or 1/3 cup of lemon juice bottled for cooking into the pre rinse cycle. Concentrated fruit juices are not recommended because of pulp. Another idea I found to add nice fragrance to powdered versions of home made laundry detergent is to add scented bath salts. ½ cup per gallon of detergent. For liquid detergent you can achieve the same great smell by adding a few teaspoons of your favorite bath salts to the rinse cycle.

A few additional laundry tricks I have found useful over the years include ways to remove various types of stains, dirt and odors.

Tips for deeply soiled items and stains:

Mechanical Grease and oil: I got this idea from a friend who's husband worked as an auto mechanic. My husband is notorious for wearing his brand new shirt or nice jeans to work on the car. I've found when I washed his clothes separately and added a can of coca cola brand soft drink to the presoak cycle, it helped tremendously to remove car oil and mechanical grease from his clothing. For items that are extremely soaked and deeply penetrated with oil I first presoak the stains by using a paste of 1 cup baking soda adding just enough water to get it wet and pasty with a consistency of putty. Apply generously to the stain and use a nailbrush or piece of steel wool to scrub it into the stain thoroughly. Apply more paste on top and let it sit for at least a half-hour before washing. This should take most of the stain out. Apply a generous amount of soda water afterwards before washing the item. If you don't have soda water, fizzy ginger ale works well also. Always make sure the fabric is completely clean before placing it in the dryer. If in any doubt, air dry first to evaluate the stain.

Baby food: I tried dozens of suggestions for removing baby food stains from clothing before I settled on one solution which yielded the best results in my opinion. The first thing to do to get rid of these tough stains is to launder the item as quickly as possible. For some reason, food stains, particularly baby food, seem to be harder to get out the longer they sit. Start by gently scraping any food left sitting on top of the fabric that hasn't already soaked in with a metal spoon. Try not to spread the food making the stain bigger. Next rinse the item inside out under cold running water, pushing the stained area with your fingers outwards to remove any additional loose food particles. Finally, use a mixture comprised of 1 cup baking soda (washing soda if handy), 1 cup hydrogen peroxide or distilled white vinegar (both work equally well though some people complain the vinegar sometimes leaves a light after smell which takes a few washings to get out). Add 2 cups of hot water, mix well to dilute the baking soda and pour into an all-purpose spray bottle.

Note that this mixture does not hold up well when stored for long periods of time so it is better to mix it up just before you are going to treat the items. Pretreat the fabric item and allow it to sit overnight before washing. For extremely stubborn stains that are ground in or have been sitting for a while, you can mix up a gallon ratio of this mixture and soak the item entirely immersed in a small plastic tub over night. Make sure to place it in a container that is completely sealable and place it somewhere that small children or animals will not come into contact with it. I've also found this idea to be very helpful in removing chocolate and ketchup stains from clothing after applying the baking soda paste mentioned above.

Heavy dirt stains and grass stains: Easily cured by wetting a bar of Fels Naptha soap and applying a generous amount to the stained area. Scrub with a nailbrush in a circular motion for three to five minutes or until the stain appears to be gone. Using this method and applying a generous amount of lemon juice to the stained area also works well to remove grass stains. For dirt stains the item can be washed immediately, grass stains should soak in the lemon juice for at least a half-hour. Another great method that works in a pinch is to scrub the area well with rubbing alcohol, and let soak afterwards for 20 minutes or so.

Cooking grease and oil: I learned this trick while working in the food service industry. Sprinkle the item liberally with cornstarch. Rub in the cornstarch for a few minutes pressing firmly with your fingers in a circular motion. Dust off any remaining cornstarch then wash the item as directed by the manufacturer. This works well even if the item has been sitting for a few days. Another method I found that worked well especially for white items like chef coats and aprons is to soak the stain in a generous amount of hand sanitizer that includes alcohol as a primary ingredient overnight. In a pinch you can also rub in Aloe Vera lotion into the stain and allow it to sit about an hour. I found this method to work well for lightly stained items but the results were not as good with items that were deeply penetrated or had been sitting for more than a day or two before washing, as it seemed to lighten the stain rather than completely removing it.

Blood stains: Especially hard to treat on delicate items or if left to sit over time, I've found several handy ideas for removing blood from clothing. For fresh or still slightly wet bloodstains, window cleaner with ammonia works great. Spray liberally and let sit for about an hour then rinse well with cold running water before washing. You can also try scrubbing the affected area with ordinary table salt to remove most of the blood then using a baking soda paste and allowing the item to sit for a few hours, rinsing well with cold water before washing in the machine. For bloodstains that have set for an extra long time, soak overnight in hydrogen peroxide. Some people complain that the peroxide weakens the integrity of the fabric but in my personal experience the items lasted just as long as expected with normal wear. Another trick that works well for long standing bloodstains is to soak the stain overnight after applying saline eye drops. Wet the stain thoroughly and scrub in the saline solution with your fingers for a few minutes.

General laundry tips:

To brighten whites: Add 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar to the pre rinse cycle leaves whites bright and clear. For those not fond of the smell of vinegar, try 1 cup hydrogen peroxide. Another trick that had great results for me is to add a plain adult aspirin to the presoak cycle when washing. Run a little bit of water into the tub before adding your load of clothes, then drop the aspirin in. Allow a few minutes for the aspirin to dissolve then add your laundry and wash as usual. I've used brand name aspirin such as Bayer as well as plain old generic aspirin from the Dollar Store with the same good results. Soaking whites in a tub of hot water with a cup of lemon juice added to it for about an hour also works well for keeping whites white especially for items like socks and under clothing and is less harsh on the fabric than bleach.

To keep colors bright: Add a tablespoon of ordinary table salt to the wash cycle. White vinegar added to the wash also helps to lock in color. Sorting different shades of colors helps to keep clothes bright as well as washing and drying them inside out and allowing them to tumble dry instead of using the permanent press settings on the dryer. Of course always remember to read the manufacturer label for specific washing instructions and to wash them in cold water for longer lasting color.

Sour smelling clothes: add ½ cup white vinegar to the pre rinse cycle while washing. This has worked every time for me. If you prefer you can also use 1/2 cup of Febreeze fabric softener to the was cycle.

Ring around the collar: Pretreat by brushing on a liquid detergent with a small paintbrush or basting brush. Home made detergents work just as well as store bought detergents and dish soaps. Allow the item to sit for a few minutes. For makeup stains, liberally spread petroleum jelly, Vaseline or cooking shortening onto the stain prior to washing the item.