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This feels like info that should be in the new Anarchist Cookbook.
probably most everything is a scam if you look close enough.
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where the fuck are these people buying detergent that is 80x the ingredients they listed? isn’t bar soap also industry made?
also I’m sorry maybe there’s legit uses for it but whenever I hear someone say essential oil I assume they’re knee deep in grlftland and have fucking crystals and shit all around the house.
The price things gets me too. I was actually talking about this with a coworker a couple months ago. I live alone so I’m not doing nearly the amount of laundry that some people are doing but even then that last bottle of laundry detergent I bought cost me like 9 bucks and took a bit over 2 years to go through. I think I’m fine spending 4.50 a year on my laundry supplies.
So you just saw the words “essential oil” and quit reading? They’re using it to make their laundry smell good, not cure cancer.
it was at the end, there wasn’t much left to quit
where the fuck are these people buying detergent
I just did the math on mine, I’m paying about 10 cents per cycle for laundry detergent. Even if the ingredients to make my own were literally free, I’m still only saving about $5 per year. Not worth my time.
Essential oils will not cure diseases or anything, but they are great for making things smell nice. I would give using these in a dryer ball a pass.
fair
Yeah I’m not putting all that effort and potentially ruining my washing machine to save me a few cents per wash. That seems ridiculous.
You don’t even have to buy the fancy, expensive, in a pod detergent or anything, considering they always contain the same stuff that comes in a box/bottle. Just buy whatever’s cheap.
Yea, making your own laundry detergent from grated soap and borax is something people with money do to convince themselves theyre frugal. When in reality there is no way in hell youre making a commodity cheaper than GreatValue ™
Yeah, the cheap standard powder detergent would probably be less expensive. The volume you’d need to make to beat it is huge. Like, maybe five years’ worth.
I am also laughing at making washing powder in the oven to save money. The amount you’d spend on electricity would put you in the red, unless you live in a petrostate with free electricity or something.
The amount of free time you’d have to have, as well, to even consider baking the powder for an hour per round to make it usable… After a certain point my time is valuable to me and I’d rather just pay a dollar or two extra to not have to worry about all this mess.
Indeed. Or working for prison slave wages.
Lol yeah I didn’t even consider that. At this point it almost feels like some of that has to be trolling. Either that or there is a large detergent hobbyist community out there that I have just not been aware of.
Not just the effort, but by the time you buy all those ingredients, you’re probably paying more than you would for normal laundry detergent.
And if you use Dr. Bronner’s bar soap as recommended, you’ll be paying out the ass.
Not to mention the gas to go to the three separate stores you probably need to buy that shit from.
Eh, all of that stores really well, so buy in bulk.
I can’t imagine baking baking soda in an oven is cheaper than just buying washing soda? They’re both sold in similar size bags (1kg) for similar prices in my area (€9-€10). Seems like a waste of energy to buy the wrong type of carbonate.
Some people will literally discard economies of scale just to be sanctimonious.
also, soooo many people will just ignore power usage bills, which can be quite substantial in some areas. Running my oven for an hour straight is not exactly cheap
The amount at Costco is about 5lbs, so that is more than the 2.2lbs y’all are talking about.
It might depend on the size of the household, and the volume produced at any one time. If you make a gigantic batch that will last 1+ year(s), it might be a cost-saver, but who knows?
Isn’t detergent incredibly cheap though? I always buy the cheapest per weight Aldi stock. I think we may have spent less than £5 on it in the past year. Never bought fabric conditioner, wtf would I want that for, deliberately make my towels less absorbent and more flammable?
Are all your clothes towels? Just don’t use it when you wash your towels lol
I often wash towels with other things though. It would be rather wasteful to run a second load just for towels.
Fabric softener / dryer sheets make clothing feel disgustingly slimy.
This thread is so wild I swear. A bottle of softener costs 2 bucks and last you for so many washes (up to 100?). A bar of soap cost one buck, then you have to factor in the time to prepare the softener, the other ingredients and whatnot.
Where is the saving?
The saving is due to not using a useless softener - the point of this this thread
Why? It smells good. If you can’t afford a 2 buck softener at lease every 3 months (assuming a wash once a week) I’d say you have got much bigger problems
Oh it smells good? Idc, if I cared enough to perfume my clothes I’d do it at point of use.
What do you want your clothes to smell? What’s the point?
IMO fabric softener is utterly pointless but my main problem with it is that it can degrade some clothes faster.
https://fabrictopics.com/does-fabric-softener-damage-clothes/
I find it hard to believe that a $2 “fabric softener” smells all that good? Pretty sure it smells like cheap chemical fragrances.
Mmmm febreeze!
Sure, but the point is that fabric softener is not necessary.
At the very least in the case of towels (any type), it is actually counter productive, because it makes the towels less absorbent.
On top of that, it means clothes absorb less sweat, which, at first glance, seems like a good thing, until you realise it means your sweat will now stick to your skin longer, because it can’t evaporate from your shirt.
It’s not the softener itself. It’s the softener plus a dozen other little luxuries that all add up.
Sometimes I’ll be at the laundry detergent shelf at the shop and see a really low price, only to get disappointed by it being softener and not detergent. Shit be cheap, compared to detergent. Wouldn’t even use softener if it were free though, so can’t comment on how long it lasts.
A bottle of softener costs 2 bucks and last you for so many washes (up to 100?).
What kind of fabric softener is that cheap for that much? My experience is that it’s way more expensive than that.
https://www.target.com/p/downy-april-fresh-liquid-fabric-conditioner-140-fl-oz/-/A-82823990
Here’s a typical fabric softener at Target. $13 before tax. Still not a lot, but it’s not nearly as cheap as $2.
My favorite is the Tide Free and Clear commercial where the kid goes “look dad, it’s just as clean but without any of the chemicals that harm me!” They’re literally admitting their core product contains harmful chemicals yet people are still buying it!
It also makes the clothes extremely flammable.
All ot does is make the fabric soft? Are yall wearing potatoes sacks?
I use soap nuts for washing and vinegar as the softener. It comes out perfectly clean but has a neutral smell (which might smell weird when you first start doing this). I sometimes add a tiny bit of store bought softener to the vinegar for stuff like more expensive hoodies and tshirts.
Borax gives me rashes, but I’ve used laundry bar soap or just the super sensitive skin liquid stuff. I use vinegar instead of name brand fabric softener because it’s cheaper and the other stuff gives me a rash. Nearly all of the store bought laundry stuff gives me rashes.
You have to really make sure borax is fully rinsed out or it can leave some residue as well. But, it can be extraordinarily effective at cleaning clothes, particularly if you 1) fully dissolve it in water prior (use boiling) and 2) soak for at least an hour.
Borax is also effective at killing mold. But, like you innormally stock with vinegar. Gets rid bacteria, viruses and mold too.
Doesn’t that make your clothes smell like vinegar?
If only millennials bought more fabric softener instead of avocados and coffee they would be able to afford a house.
