question about laundry

[italiancookies]

1. is oxyclean ok to use as far as toxins and bad for kids? I have been using the baby oxyclean and worry that it is a poor product to use in place of bleach. I know I cant use vinegar and bleach at the same time b/c of fumes but can I use the oxyclean and vinegar.

2. Can I have a natural detergent recipe for my laundry. Especially since I am trying to stop using bleach on my whites. Where do you get the items.

3. what essential oils do you add to disenfect and smell lovely?

4. do you use those dryer balls in place of cling sheets?

[SleepyMamaBear]

1. oxybleach is fine. i mean i wouldnt have them drinking it, but its perfectly safe to wash clothes in, soak clothes in, etc. and its safe for the environment.
2, somone will be along shortly to post the washing soda/borax/felsnaptha recipe i am sure, we use Charlies, at $.09 a load its AWESOME for us, and is the only thing that doesnt hurt DDs and my skin.
3. TTO to disinfect, you can also use GSE. Lavender works, but not AS well. and when i want laundry smelling like something other than jsut CLEAN clothes (Charlies gets things so clean and it just smells fresh and clean, and like NOTHING) i will put a few drops of sweet orange oil or sandlewood oil or both in a downey ball with distilled while vinegar to the line.
4.
with us using Charlies it leaves clothes SUPER clean so they are SUPER soft, so we dont use anything for softness, and instead of using dryer balls to help cut drying time we use a clean dry towel thrown in. its cuts drying time alot.

[italiancookies]

very helpful

[melamama]

1. I use oxy and I don't think there's any issue with it. I don't put it in every load though--I will soak stains in it, and every once in a while add some to a load. I don't see why you couldn't use the oxy with a vinegar rinse--though I don't think it's necessary. I normally only use vinegar in my rinse (in one of those downy balls) when I've soaked in baking soda--to balance.

2. I don't have a natural detergent recipe. I also use Charlie's. Once I realized it worked for us I ordered the giant pail of it, and it's great. I use it for clothes and cloth dipes.

3. I don't add eo for disinfecting. tto bugs me, so I will use lavender or peppermint when I want a nice scent.

4. I usually don't use anything in the dryer. TJ's had lavender sachets that are basically big tea bags with lavender bits, and sometimes I use them. I would use dryer balls possibly in the winter since we had a lot of static this past winter, but I just didn't get around to it, and I was the only on who noticed the static right out of the dryer.

*the biggest thing for me in keeping whites white and colors the right ones is separating. darkdarks, whites, reds, and general colors. If I wash the right colors together everything is great.

[SleepyMamaBear]

yeah we seperate whites, lights, and darks, reds go in with the darks.
i noticed that when i do my whites with HOT water and 3 scoops of OxoBright(a good quality oxygen bleach found at my TJs) all by themselves they get SO WHITE, especially if i let them soak for an hour after 10 minutes of aggitation.
but if i wash them with any darks they turn dingy.
also my darks ALWAYS bleed. the first spin after they have aggitated, before the rinse cycle, OMG the water is almost black, and its not dirt. its dyes leaking.
and my lights are almost all of Addys clothes lots of bright pretty colors that contrast Morgans dark black clothes.

also, if you wash/dry all natural fibers with NO synthetic fibers in the load they come out ALOT less staticky than if there were say, a pair of gym shorts in with them.

[reducereuserecycle]

thanks for reminding me about throwing in a clean dry towel to cut drying time. i like that better than to throw in some plastic dryer balls.