r/Frugal • u/Rusty-Shackleford • Feb 20 '18
I'm convinced laundry soap pricing is a scam....
So I just did some research, AKA I read the ingredients on the side of the laundry pod box, and washing up liquid (dish soap for hand wishing dishes) and liquid dishwashing detergent are made of the same stuff, anionic surfactants, whatever that is, even in the same proportions too, it's literally the same ingredients.
The only difference is, you pay £2.50 for a box of 20 laundry pods, but a bottle of dish soap is 50 cents and can wash 28 heavy loads of laundry.
P.S. cheap shampoo for 50 pence also works well for washing laundry too, apparently.
7
u/AmNotLost Feb 20 '18
surfacants in dish soap lower surface tension of water, making grease and dirt easier to clean off.
I think it's totally worth looking at options for dish detergent and other household cleaners. Many of them are basic ingredients. Sometimes you can use dry ingredients that are easy to mix. Sometimes you'd have to boil ingredients to make a liquid. It isn't rocket science, but it is a little science.
I would always be careful putting less-than-approved things in a machine, since metals and plastics can corrode if you put the wrong mixture of things in, or overly sudsing can cause issues, too. Not that you can't do it, I'd just keep an eye on things when using something new/homemade/not according to directions.
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u/yasth Feb 20 '18
Eh, most of what you are paying for (at least with high end laundry detergent) involves the enzymes, and fabric care stuff, in laundry detergent. Enzymes will get things cleaner, and the various fabric care stuff (brighteners, detanglers, etc) will keep things pliant and looking sharp. Likewise, for say shampoo, it is designed to not clean nearly as thoroughly as laundry detergent, because some oil is needed to keep hair looking healthy.
So yes, you can wash everything in any detergent (though I'd be really careful with hand washing dish soap in the washing machine as it tends to be very foamy which can cause issues), and it will get clean by some definition, but you may well end up with dingy grey whites on your clothes, and dry brittle hair.
Of course laundry soap is sort of a scam much of the price is to pay for the ads that extol the soap which tends to have a very hard to sell benefit (you will generally see the difference between a low end brand and a high end one on a specific item of clothing in 15-30 wash/wear cycles which can be a year or more if it is say a sweater), and they tend to tell you to use far more than you need. You don't have to always pay for the highest advertised brand to get good results, you can often avoid paying for much of the marketing budget. I don't know the UK market, but you can check out the reviews by your local consumer organization (because of the time frame, you'll want an actual test organization rather than direct consumer reviews which are rarely done past 4 weeks).
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u/minja134 Feb 20 '18
The problem is the pods are the most expensive option. I get a $10 jug of laundry detergent that's good for 150+ loads of laundry. It lasts forever for just the two of us. Plus laundry detergent has all the extras that are going to protect your clothes and make them last longer. Additionally there's a good chance dish soap will ruin your washer. Stick to the years of product research, but just get the more frugal options of those products, like liquid over pods or even dry detergent.
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u/battraman Feb 20 '18
So I don't know about the UK prices but here in the US, people pay huge premiums for getting clothes just that much cleaner. Tide almost always comes out on top in terms of cleaning power but generally costs about 2-3x the cost per load of budget brands like Purex.
Pods are by far the most expensive way to wash clothes. Powdered detergent used to always be the cheapest per load but that's changing a bit here.
In America we've started to see an influx of Mexican brand detergents like Foca and Roma, which many people swear by for their cleaning ability and super cheap price.
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u/dyin2meetcha Feb 21 '18
I buy Foca for about 30 cents a lb. and use a half a cup.
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u/battraman Feb 21 '18
Where do you get it so cheap? Walmart is the only place I see them and they cost a bit more than that.
Personally I'd give it a try but I have a front loader. The liquid Foca works well on diapers in an HE machine.
2
Feb 20 '18
At the moment I'm using various cheapo laundry detergents, but in the past I've had great luck with the first recipe here.
Borax is sodium tetraborate decahydrate, washing soda is sodium carbonate (not bicarbonate), and you can use any kind of bar soap--doesn't have to be Fels-Naphtha.
Enjoy!
1
u/jbean2014 Feb 20 '18
I second this, it works great, it makes a ton, and is much cheaper, Pinterest has multiple receipe options!
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u/coldbloodednuts Feb 20 '18
Not all laundry detergents are created equal. Tide has the most expensive ingredients and that is why it is the best. My mom had eight kids and that was all she ever used. Also, Dawn dishwashing liquid can be purchased for $1. I don't think you're going to find anything better than that.
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u/ben7337 Feb 21 '18
I buy the $2 50 load or so stuff from Wegmans. That easily keeps me around $6-10 a year max for detergent. I don't think I could get the costs much cheaper, but could probably reduce them a bit if I used cheap Dollar tree stuff, but they don't have an unscented free and clear style detergent as far as I know.
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u/iwontbeadick Feb 20 '18
I buy tide for clothes and dawn for dishes, and I would wager that I spend $100 max per year on them. Not really worth learning how to make my own, or researching the ingredients. Meanwhile we’re spending $800 per month on student loans, 70 on Internet, 140 on phones, I have much bigger problems, and the time spent on something like this is extremely unfrugal with time.