cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/58998407
Fabric softener is a scam
It's also ridiculous how many products are just trucking water around from one place to another with a little big of active solution mixed in. We need more 'just add water' products available.
I don't think I've ever used fabric softener. -Gen Xer
i used it until i learned that it's basically just perfume liquid that dissolves your clothes slightly
miss me with that shit
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 NaHCO~3~ (baking soda) → Na~2~CO~3~ (washing soda) + H~2~O + CO~2~
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 NaHCO~3~ , Washing soda is Na~2~CO~3~
Baking soda is (incorrectly) called "Bicarb" because there is twice as much Carbonate (CO~3~) per Sodium (Na). Heating it causes some to be released as water and carbon dioxide:
2 NaHCO~3~ → Na~2~CO~3~ + H~2~O + CO~2~
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.
Is it just me, my browser or Tesseract? I can't for the love of Bob get a readable resolution of the screenshot. In other news, you won't believe how many household chemicals (in the broadest sense) you can replace with standard chemicals (like natron, table salt, citric acid or vinegar). The differences are that the "magic" household chemicals might contain colorants, perfume and filler and a retail unit of them will cost about as much as a metric ton of the active ingredients.
I think it's a Lemmy thing. on Sync if i tap the image it's blurry unless i tap onto the post itself, which I presume links to a full resolution image instead of the compressed-to-shit thumbnail Lemmy uses for your feed
Here's a direct link: https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/92f7e7f1-a007-4921-b069-49f7753bbcda.jpeg?format=webp
I only get a blurry image too. I'm using the Photon web frontend. Completely unreadable.
Worked okay for me, Chrome on an old Android. Tapped the image then two finger zoomed in on it, no blur.
for everything but wool, I use soft soap instead of washing powder. Just straight out of the bottle. Softener is pointless. I add a table spoon of ättiksprit (I think it's "spirit vinegar" in English) instead of softener.
I literally have to check every machine I use for fabric softener left in the little cup thingies and thoroughly wipe out the drier I use or it will burn my skin until I wash it all out of my clothes.
My life got so much better when I stopped buying shampoo and conditioner. All my scalp problems and dry, straw-like hair went away. I couldn't dry comb my hair for the first thirty-some years of my life. Now I can comb my hair any time I want!! It's cheaper, more convenient, and works better.
Collect some horse chestnuts, smash 4 with a hammer and put them in an old sock. Throw the sock and nuts in the wash. It's a free replacement for unscented detergent.
You can also make detergent from English Ivy and a bunch of other plants.
