You don't need to buy most things for your laundry
You don't need to buy most things for your laundry
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/58998407
Fabric softener is a scam
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The homemade laundry detergent is so fucking good, though. No joke. My clothes have never felt cleaner. But can someone explain, if washing soda is just baked baking soda, why can't you just use the baking soda directly? If it's just to remove the moisture as they say in the pic, why bother doing it, since you're dumping it into water?
Also, get yourself a downy ball if your washing doesn't have the fabric softner section, and use vinegar. I love the way our laundry feels once we switched to vinegar.
I think it's a chemical reaction that dislodges the Hydrogen from the molecule. OP said "until the water evaporates". Seems to check out with the formula.
Also the "extra" carbonate group is dislodged as carbon dioxide:
2 NaHCO3 (baking soda) → Na2CO3 (washing soda) + H2O + CO2
Can you use it on colored clothes? Borax acts as bleach so I'm a bit skeptical.
In my experience, yes. HOWEVER, I'm one of those "welcome to the laundry gauntlet" type people. I do not care for my clothes the way I should. Everything just get washed with little regard, unless it's something hand made crochet or knit. But I've never noticed any bleaching or white spots.
You probably could, but IMO that's an excessive amount of borax in the recipe. Most washing mixes only use a tiny amount of borax, it's mostly soap/detergent and sodium carbonate (washing soda)
Baking soda is NaHCO3 , Washing soda is Na2CO3
Baking soda is (incorrectly) called "Bicarb" because there is twice as much Carbonate (CO3) per Sodium (Na). Heating it causes some to be released as water and carbon dioxide:
2 NaHCO3 → Na2CO3 + H2O + CO2
Awesome! I wouldn't call this "releasing moisture" though which, to me, implies a physical change. It's straight up providing the activation energy for a chemical decomposition.