Since borax contains sodium4, adding one-half cup per load helps to soften the wash water, so your clothes come out looking great.
For this reason, borax makes for a decent laundry detergent substitute. While borax is a great sidekick to detergent in small amounts, it can be used to loosen stains and brighten up clothing on its own.
Borax is a basic compound, so that means that when it is added to water the pH level of the water would move from a neutral 7 to a slightly more basic 8. The combination of water and Borax allows detergent to work even better as it is easier for it to clean with a more basic water pH.
Use Laundry Borax or Baking Soda
If you have no detergent at all, use one cup of borax or baking soda for a normal load. The clothing will be cleaner than you imagine thanks to the action of the cleaning agents, water, and the agitation from the washer.
While the National Library of Medicine (NLM) classifies borax as being noncarcinogenic, it does pose some risks, including: skin, eye, and respiratory irritation. digestive problems. infertility.
Put ¼ cup of borax, ¼ cup of washing soda, and ½ cup of laundry detergent together. Let it fully dissolve. Pour hot water onto the laundry to cover them. Let sit until the water's fully cooled, stirring occasionally.
Unlike bleach, borax is safe to use on colored fabrics without fear of dye removal or other damage. This general rule applies whether borax is used as a laundry booster in the washing machine, as part of a pre-soak solution, as a spot treatment for stains or as an ingredient in homemade laundry detergent.
Oxiclean powder is essentially washing soda with sodium percarbonate, which turns into hydrogen peroxide. It's color safe and works great to get rid of stains and keeps whites white and colors bright. It's also much safer / less toxic than Borax. Borax works well too, helps get rid of stains, and whitens clothes.
First, make sure to keep it away from children's reach. Second, avoid using it as a cosmetic product and handle it with care at all times. This usually means wearing a mask and gloves when using it. Finally, do NOT mix Borax with any boric acid products, such as pesticides.
Heat and stir until soap is completely dissolved. Add borax and washing soda. It will thicken very quickly.
Add ½ cup of borax to one gallon of water. Pre-soak your sheets in the solution overnight. Machine wash as usual.
For a bathtub, we recommend ¼ cup borax, ¼ cub washing soda, and ½ cup detergent. Stir to dissolve. Completely submerge your towels in the mixture and soak until the water has cooled, which usually takes four to five hours. Stir occasionally to help coax out all the buildup in the towels.
Allow laundry to soak for 5 - 6 hours, stirring every hour. Remove laundry from the tub and add to a washing machine. Wash as usual.
Baking soda won't strip your laundry as well as borax or washing soda (more on that shortly), but it's also gentler on fabrics, and you're more likely to have it on hand! When used one after another (or together, in certain situations), baking soda and vinegar can be useful for cleaning.
Borax will: 1. Whiten Your Whites: When your washing machine fills up with water, Borax converts some of the water molecules to hydrogen peroxide, which is a whitening agent. This enhances the action of bleach, whether you add it separately or it's already present in your laundry detergent.
Borax helps remove stains, is a color-safe bleach alternative, and deodorizer. To whiten whites, add a 1/2 cup Borax to your laundry directly in with the clothes – not in the detergent dispenser on a front loader.
Borax has long been recognized for its disinfectant and deodorizing properties. Mix a 1/2 cup of Borax into 1 gallon of hot water or undiluted vinegar and clean with this solution. For a fragrant smell, add a few sprigs of fresh thyme, rosemary or lavender to the above recipe.
Borax is usually insoluble in cold water but hot water helps in its solubility.
Borax acts as a buffer and raises the pH of the water to a slightly basic solution, right around a pH of 8. Don't use Borax at the same time as vinegar or you'll just create a nice little acid-base reaction and make salt.
Though dish soap is great as a stain pretreatment option, it's not meant for direct use in a laundry washing machine. That's because dish soaps are uniquely formulated to break up grease and stuck-on food particles with foamy suds—something you don't want to happen in your washing machine.
Dirt gets washed away like normal, but anything oily, such as skin oil, will remain on the clothes. If a load is accidentally done without detergent and dried it probably would not matter for that one time especially if washed in hot water that can dissolve oils. There is not a lot of oil buildup anyway.