Laundry Soap Dilemmas

If you are a mom, likely something you use daily is laundry detergent.  As a cloth diapering family of five, I find my washer and dryer are constantly going just to keep up with the demands of an ever growing Mt. Laundry.  In fact, I tend to start my day by getting laundry going and the dishwasher.  The soft whirl of both machines feels homey and comfortable.

But for years I’ve struggled with the laundry soap dilemma.   When we first got married, I used Tide.  It was what my mom had used and I enjoyed the scent.  But I was always bothered by the big price tag that comes with Tide and so as money became tight, I switched over to Era.  I would buy a giant container of it at Sams Club and it felt like the next best thing.

With the addition of Magdalena, I found myself needing a new detergent.  She was a rashy girl who reacted to paper diapers and cloth diapers if they weren’t washed *just right*.  So I added BioKleen to our routine. I used the BioKleen on diapers, Baby All on her clothes, and Era on everything else.  I liked the BioKleen, and wished that we could use it on everything for environmental reasons, but it came with the same problem that Tide had- the price.  I also hated that if anybody walked into my laundry room, they would have no clue what soap to use on what!

I searched for the perfect detergent.  This seems to be an ongoing quest of cloth diapering moms- to find the perfect detergent that won’t hurt your diapers, will rinse cleanly, and won’t cause wicking of your most prized diapers.  I had an extra challenge– hard water.  The hard water makes it hard to really rinse things clean.  And I always felt that those huge cups of Era or Tide were wasteful when washing clothes.  Were we so dirty that it required THAT much detergent?  By this time I had also added a front loading machine that required an “HE” detergent.  What is a girl to use?

After much searching, I found the Sears brand of detergent.   It appeared that it would help solve my dilemma.  It required only using a very small scoop of detergent per load of laundry.  It worked with cloth diapers.  And worked with our hard water.  I buy it in the bulk version which used to be a 5 gallon bucket.  Now they sell the largest version in a 26.4lb box.  I still have my bucket though and fill it up when it gets empty.  I almost always am able to buy it on sale for around $22 which makes each load cost roughly 8 cents!  That’s affordable!   And I don’t buy detergent often anymore.  One bucket full generally lasts between 4-6 months. The larger our family grows obviously the faster the soap goes as well! (Oh! And be warned– toddlers love to use the soap as sand. I learned that the hard way.   )

I really can’t sing the praises of this laundry soap enough.  So if you are looking for something new, or are looking for something more economical- run to Sears and get yourself some.  And don’t worry, you can buy smaller boxes to try out at first!