Monday, April 30, 2007

On laundry detergent

May I introduce you to my very favorite laundry detergent? In all of my days of watching my mama do laundry and of now doing my own laundry I have never found one that I liked so well. I hope to always be able to get this brand.

This detergent is my friend and ally in keeping our clothes clean and smelling as fresh as possible. I have found most fragrances in laundry detergents these days to be too heavy for my liking; even a slightly sensitive person can find these to be the cause of headaches because of the fragrance (even the “scent free” varieties have their own masking scent) and hard on skin because of the additives. My laundry soap, however, only smells fresh—not leaving a fragrance, but a faint sense that that piece of clothing must have hung out in the fresh air to dry. It has been tested in many labs and has been proven to be non-toxic, biodegradable, environmentally safe, certified for food preparation areas, a great stain remover, flame retardant, and residue free!

I love the way that my clothes smell when they come out of the washing machine, ready to hang out on the clothesline. I don’t use a fabric softener to make them smell nice or to be soft. This detergent seems to do all that itself. The colors do not seem to become dull, as they do with some others. Tide has been my favorite until now, but I do not feel a loss at all now that I use this one. If you have some whites that need to be bleached you can use bleach in with a regular load at the same time as this soap.

It is not too expensive for someone like me to buy. Mama buys it in bulk and then I buy it from her a little at a time (enough to fill my little galvanized bucket that I keep it in!). You only need a little at a time for each load—it comes with a little scoop that can’t be much more than a tablespoon in size, one scoop for each load. I believe it comes out to be just under 10 cents a load.

What is this wonderful soap you might ask? It is called “Charlie’s Soap”. Mama found it a couple of years ago and has been using it ever since. Before I got married I bought a little galvanized bucket-full of it and put it with the things from my hope chest so it would be ready when I started housekeeping! You can find it at their website here. I commend it to the house!

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