4Real Forums: Favorite laundry detergent/ stain remover

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Topic: Favorite laundry detergent/ stain remover

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teachingmyown
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Posted: Oct 29 2007 at 2:12pm \| IP Logged

I am at the point where one more clothing stain that doesn't come out is going to drive me over the edge!

What is your absolute favorite laundry detergent and/or laundry stain remover?

I have been using Biokleen detergent for the last year and am not really impressed. I want something natural, but effective. I was considering Mrs Meyers laundry detergent but wonder how well it works. I usually soak things in Oxyclean, but it can take days for the stains to come out and I think that the clothes are deteriorating much faster from soaking.

I find it truly unbelievable how dirty my children's clothing is at the end of the day. They look like poster children for a laundry commercial.

I also need to get stains out of the baby clothes that have been sitting in bins for the last ten years.

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Molly
wife to Court & mom to ds '91, dd '96, ds '97, dds '99, '01, '03, '06, and dss '07 and 01/20/11
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hylabrook1
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Posted: Oct 29 2007 at 2:16pm \| IP Logged

Besides Oxyclean, my favorite is the old reliable Fels Naphtha, bar of *yellow laundry soap" (as my grandmothers used to refer to it). I don't know how *green* it is and it sure is nasty on your hands. BUT it is cheap and effective.

Peace,
Nancy

JenniferS
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Posted: Oct 29 2007 at 2:17pm \| IP Logged

I have had good luck with felsnaptha(sp?) soap. I wet the area that is stained and scrub it good with the bar soap. Occasionally I have added a squirt of shout on a really tough stain. It works well for grass stains, but it can sometimes take the color out of clothing(like the knees of blue jeans turn a lighter color). I also think it weakens the fabric some. Jsut my opinion. It could jsut be that five boys are really hard on the knees of their jeans!

Jen

esperanza
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Posted: Oct 29 2007 at 2:18pm \| IP Logged

Molly,

I know its not natural...but I keep stain sticks in various places for the dc to use also.
I have been wondering if anyone here uses the "miracle laundry ball".

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lilac hill
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Posted: Oct 29 2007 at 2:36pm \| IP Logged

Molly,
I use Sun and Earth laundry detergent (they have a website and free shipping on larger orders. I can buy the jugs of laundry detergent at the grocery store cheaper than the website, this week 100oz for $6.06) and Fels soap for stain removal. Sun and Earth is "green" and unscented and very affordable and they are a PA company. I believe I read, at one time, that this company is also owned by the employees.The Fels works great on stains. I plan on getting a wash board for stains since some washboards are easier on clothing than the scrub brush I use. Sometimes I soak laundry in Borax -100 mule power (or something like that) too.
BTW-know what you mean about stains. We do not have babaies but we play hard and our clothes look like it!

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teachingmyown
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Posted: Oct 29 2007 at 3:01pm \| IP Logged

I have never heard of Felsnaphta. Where would I get it?

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Molly
wife to Court & mom to ds '91, dd '96, ds '97, dds '99, '01, '03, '06, and dss '07 and 01/20/11
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organiclilac
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Posted: Oct 29 2007 at 3:07pm \| IP Logged

I have been making this homemade laundry detergent for several months now, and I think it works great! A double batch uses 2/3 of a bar of Fels Naphtha, which leaves me 1/3 for stain treatment - perfect!

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mathmama
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Posted: Oct 29 2007 at 3:29pm \| IP Logged

I don't have any all natural suggestions, but I wanted to say that I had the exact same experience with Biokleen. It was terrible. No stain ever came out. I switched back to All Free and Clear and after a couple of washings many of the stains were out and my clothes didn't look dingy anymore. Now that I have a FL I use the Tide HE F&C, because it is the cheapest F&C HE detergent I could find. It has worked great and it hasn't caused a rash on my DD's bum like All F&C eventually did. I actually had to wash her diapers and then her underwear in the Biokleen because the All gave her the rash even when she was out of diapers. For some reason the Biokleen would work fine on the diapers so I continued to use it on them until I got the FL.

Good luck!

Beth

organiclilac
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Posted: Oct 29 2007 at 4:47pm \| IP Logged

Part of the reason that clothes may look duller when washed with a natural detergent is that other detergents (including All Free and Clear, from what I could find) contain optical brighteners. More on those here.

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Tracy, wife to Shawn, mama to Samuel (4/01) and Joseph (11/11), and Thomas (2/15)

hylabrook1
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Posted: Oct 29 2007 at 4:49pm \| IP Logged

Fels Naptha is a bar of soap; the wrapper is a white background with red and green (and maybe some yellow?) writing on the label. It's usually in the laundry detergent area of the grocery store, sometimes it's near the heavy duty hand soaps (like Lava). Probably it will be on a very high or very low shelf, because it's not one of those things that the people who do marketing would consider exciting! (okay, I just googled it; didn't run it down far enough to find a picture but I learned that I've been misspelling! There is only one *h* -- it's Fels Naptha). Also, it's very cheap. A bar that lasts a good long while (whatever I mean by that

) is no more than $1.50.

Peace,
Nancy

Kristie 4
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Posted: Oct 29 2007 at 7:25pm \| IP Logged

I use Tide. Not great I am sure, or I use Sunlight unscented. I find that a Front Loader has made all the difference here. I used to have so many stains before, but now I just dump everything in the machine and voila, no stains!! (Except if there is chocolate etc. than I will give it a spray with shout).

I used to use Nature Clean but found that it didn't get my clothes very clean at all, and diapers were another story.

I would like to go more natural again but need something front loader friendly!

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kristina
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Posted: Oct 29 2007 at 7:34pm \| IP Logged

teachingmyown wrote:

I am at the point where one more clothing stain that doesn't come out is going to drive me over the edge!

Molly - I can so relate to your post!
We moved to this (new construction)house four years ago. I think it has been that long since I have had clean clothes! Our previous residence had city water and I used either Tide or Shaklee (Basic L and Nature Bright worked the best - I don't have a rep anymore, though) and always had success with stain removal. I actually had relatives sending me favorite clothing to remove their stains! We also had a regular washer and dryer that were old, yet sturdy.

Our current residence has ridiculously hard water. We have a well. (A water treatment system is our next big budget item on "the list!) When we moved we upgraded to the Kenmore Elite Frontloader. Honestly, our clothes were cleaner with our old washer and dryer on city water.

Our neighbors installed a water treatment system and they don't seem to have laundry issues. They bless us with their too small clothing and they are always white, soft and stain-free.

This year I have used BioKleen, the new green Arm & Hammer and Tide just to name a few. We have tried adding Oxy, Calgon Water Softener, and Biz. I have treated with Zout and Shout. Nothing works all that well . Sometimes Dawn dish liquid does help with dark spots (from greasy hands wiped on clothes

).

Molly, do you have hard water, too

My little theory is that it is the hard water causing the stains to be resistant to cleaning, regardless of the products used.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Blessings,

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CAgirl4God
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Posted: Oct 31 2007 at 8:13am \| IP Logged

not so natural, but we use tide.

I also have stain sticks

but have found that Zout, stain remover works well for us.

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Martha
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Posted: Oct 31 2007 at 9:02am \| IP Logged

Honestly? I use the cheap of the cheap stuff. Windfresh bucket of detergent from Sam's club. The $10 bucket will last me approx 3 - 4 months. I replaced the scooper it comes with, with a 1/2 cup scooper and get the same results and stretch the use.

The only bleach I use is a thing to scrub clean the dog poop/pee stains off the back patio. (He just won't go off the covered patio when it's raining!!

)

Oxyclean is pretty good, but it's also expensive for regular use. I also have a hard enough time keeping up on laundry without having to wash only 1 or 2 items at a time. (I found it great for the carpet shampooer though and little bit went a long way with great results!)

For the worst stuff I find baking soda and vinegar ASAP usually does the trick fairly well. I think the quicker you wash the items the better.

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kingvozzo
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Posted: Oct 31 2007 at 10:53am \| IP Logged

teachingmyown wrote:

I also need to get stains out of the baby clothes that have been sitting in bins for the last ten years.

I soak my stored baby clothes in BIZ,overnight. It works really well.

Martha wrote:

I think the quicker you wash the items the better.

When the baby has a diaper explosion (which seems to be about every day

)I'm sure to wash the clothes right away. I pre-treat them wth straight TIDE and then wash the clothes in TIDE,but still have to run some things through 2 or more times.

I don't understand why the BM is so staining--it's really maddening though.

Martha wrote:

For the worst stuff I find baking soda and vinegar ASAP usually does the trick fairly well.

How do you do that? Just rub the BS and then squirt Vinegar on the stain?

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Lori B
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Posted: Oct 31 2007 at 12:29pm \| IP Logged

We have some pretty severe chemical sensitivities here, so everything has to be "all natural". We have a 15yo top-loader and hard water, yet our clothes are clean, bright and soft

Beside my washer I keep a tin of grated Ivory soap (grating soap is one of the 6yo's chores), and another tin of Borax and washing soda (similar to baking soda) mixed 1/2 and 1/2. For normal loads, I add 1/2 Tbsp soap and 1/2 Tbsp of the Borax-soda mixture. For dirty loads I double the amounts.

Stains, I dampen and rub with a bar of Ivory before throwing in the wash (works even on my son's grass stained knees and my 12yo's nosebleeds

)

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Martha
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Posted: Oct 31 2007 at 12:41pm \| IP Logged

kingvozzo wrote:

I don't understand why the BM is so staining--it's really maddening though.

Martha wrote:

For the worst stuff I find baking soda and vinegar ASAP usually does the trick fairly well.

How do you do that? Just rub the BS and then squirt Vinegar on the stain?

Correction I changed to a 1/4 (not 1/2) scooper.

Oh it is easy and I don't use ANY detergent EVER on cloth diapers and I don't keep them in a soak bucket either, just an empty trash can that we bought just to hold these and wipe clean with vinegar every time we did a load of laundry.

You get one of thosedowny ball things and you put your white vinegar in it about half way full. Then instead of using detergent, you sprinkle in 1/2 - 1 cup of baking soda. Run a full hot cycle.

Hanging them on the line outside to dry in the sun will also naturally disinfect and "bleach" them some.

Now for clothes, I'll use a 1/4 c each of laundry detergent and soda.

The diapers might get the occassion slightly darker spot, but it's on their bum so I don't really care too much. As long as I can tell it's clean and it's not too dark - I'm happy, kwim?

So far the worlds most horrible things to get out of laundry around here is spagetti sauce and fruit loop poop (which turns poo bright crayola green). Washing ASAP seems to be the only chance there no matter what I've tried.

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Martha
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Martha
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Posted: Oct 31 2007 at 12:45pm \| IP Logged

Oh yeah!!
You know we do so much that we don't even think about most of it anymore...

borax is good, but we didn't feel the need to use it every time.

and 1/8 c of peroxide will take out blood stains. my dd gets nosebleeds too and in dealing with paramedica for other issues, they tipped up off to the peroxide.

ohhh, i'm going to have to try that ivory soap thing someday. Not anytme soon though. I really hate pretreating anything. Laundry by itself is the bane of my existance. Quick and easy is my goal!

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Martha
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