Why I Quit the Homemade Laundry Detergent Craze

 



Homemade Laundry detergent.  It was so appealing in the beginning.  You will find recipes and fantastic photos of it plastered all over Pinterest.  You can save so much money compared to buying it at the grocery story.  As an extremely frugal housewife, there was nothing more appealing than the cost savings.  I'm so cheap, I once decided against buying a shirt because it was $7.  So of course, I jumped at the opportunity to save a few cents.  But the honeymoon stage only lasted for so long...

4. Preparation - While I'm known for being very thrifty, I'm also known for being lazy.  I even had a friend (Thanks, Mandi) who would buy, grate, and deliver the soap bars to me.  Even then, I still got annoyed at having to mix together all the other ingredients.  I much prefer throwing a bottle into my shopping cart as I cruise for groceries down the isles.

3. Lack of smell - When your grating the soap bar, your kitchen will smell of lovely cleanliness.  When your clothes are swishing away in the washing machine, your laundry room will smell fantastic.  But when you pull those warm, clean clothes out of the dryer, you will smell... nothing.  Not stinky, but not fragrant.  Just the odd, normal scent of cloth.

2. Phantom grey stains - Does your Grandma's use those huge white, thin tea towels?  Both of mine always have, and my mother does, and so do I now.  Most of mine were given to me by my Grandmother that passed away last year.  Now I'm not saying that the homemade detergent caused these little grey splotches all over them, but they were never there before then and they never showed up again after I quit.

1. Grease Stains - Maybe it's a sign that I'm a messy cook, but every single one of my shirts ends up with some sort of olive oil stain on it everyday.  This detergent doesn't come close to cutting through those stains.  Every shirt needed to be rubbed down with liquid dish detergent before washing.  I always thought detergent commercials that boast stain fighting boosters were just exaggerating, but now I'm a believer.