Most people have had moments of insight of either the “aha!” or the “doh!” kind. I had one of those moments while I was developing our new laundry soap. I must admit, I struggled a bit initially trying to figure out how I’m going to manage the cost of shipping a gallon of laundry soap at a time, due to the high costs of shipping, the increased costs in container packaging, and just the overall size and weight. Then one day, as I was working out the kinks in our original recipes for laundry soap, I had a realization as I was adding water to dilute the soap to the intended final mixture. It was definitely one of those ‘doh! moments.
Why ship water? Why use larger containers just to store water?
That was it, that was the solution. Sell a laundry soap concentrate, and folks can add their own water when they’re ready for a new jug of laundry soap. They just have to provide their own jug and water.
I decided to see how this would work, so I sent off samples to my wonderful testers, and awaited feedback.
One initial question from my testers was if they were allowed to reuse their old laundry soap containers, since there are warning labels not to store other liquids in those containers. I thought about this, and realized that the reason for the warning is that the old ingredients left over in the bottle may react with the new ingredients from the new product solution you’re adding to the bottle. Since I had no idea what ingredients were used in their previous laundry detergents that might be left over in the bottle, I couldn’t say mixing them would be safe. I suggested they buy a gallon of distilled water, and use that container instead, and I explained my reasoning.
What my testers told me in return was that half of them rinsed out their containers very well, making sure nothing was left behind, and then used those containers to mix the concentrate with water. While no one reported any chemical reactions, I still don’t recommend that. The other half of my testers used the gallon jugs of distilled water for mixing, and one person went all out and bought a glass container. While I’m a big fan of storing liquids in glass, I went with the HDPE plastic for obvious reasons; it would be a disaster to shake the glass container and have it slip out of your hands and shatter. So I don’t recommend glass either. HDPE is the safest plastic we could find in our research, and since you’re not heating the laundry soap, for a plastic container, you’re safe.
One of the other tester comments I received was the fact that they could re-use their larger container over and over, and recycle the smaller container; thus saving the planet one enormous container at a time, and saving space in their recycling can.
I was sold. Earth friendly ingredients to wash your clothes, not shipping ridiculous amounts of water, and saving the planet by re-using containers.
Now, available to the rest of you, our Cleanse Laundry soap concentrate. No chemicals, no brighteners, no perfumes/phalates. No thickeners, no unnecessary ingredients. Made from the most natural ingredients as always, and scented with essential oils. It’s pure cleaning love for your clothes.
You can use our laundry soap in front loading, top loading, and he washers. Just follow the instructions for proper reconstitution. This is a non-sudsing formula, so it is safe for he washers. So if you have an he washer, now you can actually have clean clothes, not just pretend clean (as often happens with he washers). While I support the use of new washers that save water, and therefore our planet, one has to remember that the point of he washers is to use less water. Which means less water to rinse out chemicals such as fragrance, brighteners, surfactants, lubricants, softeners, PVP and many others. These chemicals are added to make one “see” the cleanliness, when really, it’s just an illusion. And often times, these chemicals are not rinsed out with the smaller amount of water used by he washers. Instead, the softness and elasticity of fabrics is reduced, and many people are left with minor skin irritations.
If you want to know more about the history of laundry soap, and how some of the current detergents (that’s right, stores don’t generally sell real soap, they sell detergents), came to be, here’s a great article to read.
For Health,
Tober
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