Natural Laundry Cleaning Solutions

A lot of consumers use off-the-shelf commercial products to clean their laundry. Sometimes the choice is made based on the least expensive laundry product, or the product offering a coupon for the week.

Laundry is listed as one of the least favorite chores, and the fact is that no one really likes to do laundry, but everyone loves to have clean, fresh smelling clothes. But by using laundry solutions that contain synthetic ingredients, you’re cleaning your clothes in harmful chemicals.

These chemicals don’t always come out in the rinse cycle. Then if you toss the clothes into the dryer and add a chemically treated dryer sheet or you use a liquid fabric softener, you’re adding even more chemicals! Laundry cleaning solutions are one of the top causes of skin allergies and eye irritants.

Clean laundry drying in the sun. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But by choosing to go the more natural way and use organic or natural products, you won’t miss out on that freshly laundered smell and appearance. You’re still going to have clothes that look their best and smell great, too. What you will miss out on are the things that aren’t healthy for your body or the environment.

You can use laundry cleaning solutions you make at home, but this is time consuming and if you’re just getting started with using natural cleaners, it’ll take some time before you get the hang of making the mixture.

An easy way to go natural and save time is to use a ready-made natural or organic laundry cleaner. Not all laundry cleaners that claim to be natural really are, so you’ll have to check the ingredients carefully. The natural or organic cleaners that are best for both you and your clothes will say that they’re without any synthetic dyes, and they won’t contain any phosphates.

Look for laundry detergents that say that they’re free from chlorine chemicals. Also look for labels that say the product is hypoallergenic, and the ingredients are based on plants and not on synthetics. You can buy concentrated natural laundry detergents in larger containers to save money. Many have great, natural scents. (My favorite is Earth Friendly Products Ecos Lemongrass - I've been using it for years and it works wonderfully and smells great!)

To whiten clothes, especially clothes that have stains, you can use Borax to treat them. If you have sweat stains on shirts, put some vinegar in a spray bottle and cover the stain with the vinegar. Let sit a few minutes, then launder.

For clothing that needs to be pretreated for stains like an ink stain, you can put the clothing in vinegar. The smell isn’t all that great while it’s soaking, but it does come out in the wash and the vinegar will remove the ink stain. Vinegar is also an excellent stain remover to rid clothes of tomato-based stains.

Once you’ve pretreated any stains, just wash the clothes in a natural or organic detergent for a healthier way to clean your laundry that’s better for your health and safer for the environment!

Natural Laundry Detergents: