Dish Detergent In Place of Laundry Detergent

[In My Memory]

Some of my clothes have "hand wash only" on the label, and until now I never really attempted to hand wash my clothes. But coincidentally, I found myself out of laundry detergent, and I didnt really feel like running down to the organic store to pick up anymore. So, I had a bright idea : use liquid dish detergent instead.

 

So as a test, I filled up my bathtub with warm water and suds it up with dish detergent, and threw some clothes in. (And then I suddenly realized why I never handwashed clothes, because kneeding everything by hand is an intense workout!) I kept like colors with each other, so the first batch of clothes were a bunch of black skirts, dresses, and sweatshirts.

 

I didnt stop to ask myself "hey, is this a good idea" until I saw the water turn a very very murky brown, and I think the detergent was pulling all of the dyes out of the clothes. I dont really want to risk hurting any of my clothes, so I havent tried washing anymore.

 

So, I'm interested in what makes Laundry Detergent different from Liquid Dish Detergent (and powder dish detergent for that matter), and is it safe to use on clothes?

[Martin]

just to be clear, IMM, what you call "dish liquid detergent" is what you would use when hand-washing dishes?

 

As i am a distinctly non-organic guy, I use the blue liquid DAWN for handwashing dishes.

 

don't you love the name?

 

If your dishwash liquid is equivalent to Dawn then IMHO it is perfectly OK to use to launder clothes. In fact my wife has used dishwash liquid for years to do dresses and sweaters and delicate stuff that she doesnt want to go in the clotheswashingmachine.

 

I would guess that you use an organic dishwash liquid, but it still might be approximately equivalent to what we use and quite OK for clothes handwash.

 

===============

 

afterthought:

when you wash a large load of black or dark clothes, it is not unusual for the water to turn dark because of SOME leaching of the dye. It doesnt necessarily mean that ALL the dye is being leached. It is a question of degree---and also there could have been one item in the batch which was especially runny. It could be OK to do what you did, and no real harm done.

 

afterthought:

It could be that your dishwash liquid is not as safe for colors as the non-organic liquid Dawn. for example it might have a high Ph (a high alkalinity) which would make me worry about effect on colors. Hard to advise without actually knowing the product.

[YT2095]

laundy det contains Zeolites and water softeners, and are also mainly Sodium based.

washing up liquid is often Potassium based and contains Non of the other agents.

 

it`s also a lot stronger!

 

anyway, would you know if you ever saw this browish color when it was in the washing machine? I think you`ll find you clothes will now be Exceptionaly clean , much of the Brown will be reacted group 2 metals that take up the color quite well (hence the use of water softners in the powder).

[Phi for All]

I know laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent don't create as many suds because they are in closed machinery. Hand-wash liquid dish detergent seems to encourage lots of bubbles, so that may be harder to rinse out of clothes. There may be sanitizers in the dish soap that isn't in your laundry detergent.

 

I think your murky water is probably what happens in the washing machine with every colored load. Colorfast is just a useful term for marketing, and all colored clothes are going to fade a bit with every wash, otherwise you'd buy clothes less often. Adults aren't as hard on clothes so they usually fade and *look* old long before you're actually wearing holes in them.

[GutZ]

I've hand washed a few in my day, that colour happens to me too. For me it was work clothes with materials I didnt want to leave in a washing machine. Never used dish soap though...

[Ruby Slippers]

I'm wondering if the original poster may have well water instead of water from a public system. We are having trouble with our well and I've noticed that when I add Dawn DWashing liquid to the water with a little clorox it turns dark, dark brown. I'm thinking this is because the water already has a high PH and the liquid makes it worse. ?

 

tried another tub and added only clorox, which should take the PH in the other direction. Darkest brown. I had also added a bit of clorox to the 1st. tub. Now I know it was in fact the clorox and not the Dawn detergent, which turned the water brown.

Edited April 14, 2010 by Ruby Slippers