Why Biodegradable Laundry Soap?
After we began washing our clothes with this beauty, my skin took a turn for the worse. It was pretty obvious why: I was exposing my skin to heaps of nasty chemicals 24/7 because I didn’t look into our detergent purchase. I just grabbed some Persil (like Tide or Cheer) off the shelf and raced home with visions of clean clothes.
Detergent companies aren’t required to list the ingredients in their products. As a result, most laundry detergents are chemically enhanced with cleaning agents and scents made of things we’ve never heard of. This is a huge problem because:
- All those chemicals get in your clothes. You wear your clothes all day, and your skin absorbs all that nasty mystery stuff.
- All those chemicals in the washer go directly into the water supply.
It’s a double dose of bad.
If you use these products every day, your skin doesn’t know any better. But if you use something mild and then switch to a regular detergent like we did, your body won’t be happy. It’s like giving someone a double espresso. If he drinks that much every day, no big deal, right? And what happens to the person who never drinks coffee? Yow. He has a huge reaction to that caffeine.
So how should you find a better detergent?
Here are the things we do in our search for mild, biodegradable soaps:
- Read the label. If there isn’t an ingredient list, my thought isn’t that they don’t want you to know their secret formula. It’s that they don’t want you to know the scary stuff going into their product and against your skin. We veto any detergent without an ingredient list.
- Look at how many ingredients are listed. There shouldn’t be a lot. Do you recognize them?
- Smell it. Have you ever walked into the detergent section of places like WalMart and felt your eyes start to water? The chemical smell of that aisle is the stuff we’re putting against our bodies. If you want scented soap, make sure you know how those scents are created – chemically or naturally.
- Check the internet. See where the company stands on environmental issues, what they put in their soap, and a slew of other things. Most people probably don’t look at company websites. I do for every brand we use against our skin; I want to understand what the company is doing.
- Check out the packaging. Now that going green is the hip, money maker for businesses, everyone’s into it. But I laugh. If they’re going green, why do their products come in excess packaging and in bottles that can’t be recycled? (I haven’t found anywhere that accepts bright orange, purple, blue… plastics.) A company can’t be green if their packaging choice is destined for landfills.
- Read the label for something else. Is the soap biodegradable or is it entering our water supply and creating damage? Plant based ingredients are best, and the package should tell you if
it’s biodegradable. Obviously if it’s not biodegradable, it says nothing on the subject.
Our house gives a huge thumbs up to a product we can find in Germany and the US: Ecover. We went and bought some as soon as I realized what that chemically detergent was doing to us. My skin is thanking me for switching. And chances are, if you consider making the swap, your skin will be a little brighter, too.
(image from Ecover)
November 10th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Excellent post, Katie. I love your green way of thinking. Thanks for the tip with this product. I am also very scared about so many ingredients that are used in products that in some way are related to our bodies and nature. I while ago me and a friend did a little research about deodorants that we are using, and after I have read some articles about Aluminum salts and Parabens I switched to a natural deo, without thinking. Maybe I should have done that before, but never is too late for this kind of changes.
Vica,
(ps: I saw in some of your kitchen pictures that you are using the same bio had-washing dish detergent that we do >:D< )
November 10th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Hi Katie…well, I never thought about the effect laundry soap could have on our skin…I’ll start reading labels for that now. ;-) Bo
November 10th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Hmmm I have never thought about this before; I’ve also just used Tide regular scent for us, and now I use Dreft for our baby’s things. Maybe I’ll switch to dreft for us all – her clothes sure are soft – after I check out the label of course. I have already gotten on the bandwagon with green-cleaning products (at the suggestion of my cleaning lady, I have to admit – god I hate sounding like a yuppy!) and organic foods, so this makes sense too. And with regards to recycling – we have a new company: The Recycle Bank. They provided us with an enormous container and asked us to put all recyclables in there – paper, plastic (including Tide containers, hopefully – as I include those!), etc…It’s a newish company in the States, so your other readers might want to go online to see if they serve their areas. We’ve found that our trash has greatly reduced since we signed up with this other service, as we can recycle so much of what we were throwing away!
November 10th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I”ve always been allergic to laundry detergent…we’ve always had to go with “free & clear”. I bought some baby detergent before Brice was born (I hear it’s good at getting stains out) but found out I was allergic to it…big time! So, he gets his clothes washed in free & clear now, too.
November 10th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Thanks for the reminder. I totally forget to look for green laundry soap, and with a septic tank, we really should be using something greener. :-)
November 10th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
You encourage me to do more than just recycle. I buy Bio baby food now, and even some Bio stuff for us if the money is there. I wish they were cheaper, though. If I were in America, I would even plant my own garden and fill it with veggies and herbs. Maybe I’ll get to one day. I sure do miss homegrown foods! Especially the tomatoes.
November 11th, 2008 at 6:11 am
Yes yes yes! :) Much better for EVERYONE (and thing) involved. We found some ECOS at a great price at Sam’s Club. I’ve used it for diaper laundry for quite some time. Good stuff as well. :)
November 12th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
You all have made my day! Not to mention Mother Earth’s day. I do so very much hope you all make the switch. As I’m sure Christina can tell us, it makes a HUGE difference when you cut out all that nasty stuff.
Here’s to a long, healthy life!
Katie
November 15th, 2008 at 6:00 am
Wow! I was buying Seventh Generation, or something like that, until I bought about a ton of detergent at Costco. Once I’m done with this I’m going back to “natural”. You’ve convinced me!
November 15th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I can only use my one detergent (and bath soap for that matter) without ending up with a terrible rash. I will have to check my detergent to see what’s in it. I would hate to have to switch!
December 20th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I use Seventh Generation “free and clear.” I also use their products for pretty much everything else. Thanks for another great post, Katie!
May 19th, 2009 at 5:32 am
I’m a huge fan of Soap Nuts from Laundry Tree – http://www.laundrytree.com/. We’re American expats, too, and have no access to natural, biodegradable laundry options. So we have Soap Nuts shipped over from the States. They’re lightweight, and they’re wonderful!
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Hi Katie,
I know this post was from a while ago, but I found it via other links on your site, so I thought I’d share. I use powdered laundry soap by Biokleen. It works well and doesn’t have any strong scents that many “conventional” brands do. It is phosphate and chlorine free, so doesn’t irritate the skin. Works well in any temp water. http://biokleenhome.com/products/household/laundry
Also, on the topic of laundry soap, I used liquid soap for a while, until a friend told me about an article she read re: the environmental impacts of laundry detergent.
Liquid soap is made with A LOT of water and packaged in plastic (petroleum). The weight of the soap requires more fossil fuels for shipping. And even now with concentrated formulas, many people still use the amount they did before because mentally they think more = cleaner.
Many people shy away from powder because of “caking” or leaving residues, but this is easily remedied if you put the soap in first and then run HOT water for maybe 30 seconds before adding clothes (then switch to cold water). I learned this trick from a college friend and have never had issues with powdered soap since.
Check out this article if you want to read more: http://www.simplesteps.org/thisthats/laundry-detergent-powder-vs-liquid
Happy Washing!
Emily
January 23rd, 2010 at 12:45 am
Emily,
Thanks for your thoughts on laundry soap! We had the same feelings about powdered soap vs. liquid until we moved to Germany and the liquid ecover was the only thing we could even find that was environmentally decent in our minds. Since then, I’m seeing more and more choices (mostly, I am sure, because I am figuring out where to go). Have you ever tried soap nuts? I want to try them. And now we will certainly be looking for a powder here. You’re so right!
Thanks for all the links you shoot my way, too. I always really enjoy them.
Katie