Money Down the Drain

How much laundry detergent you need to use for your clothes depends on myriad factors. The hardness/softness of the water, how soiled the laundry is, and the size of the load all contribute to how much detergent you should add. The amount that is suggested by the manufacturer for a normal load is just an average. You can fine tune it for your own particular circumstances. Any detergent that is added to your laundry but not actually needed for cleaning is either being washed down the drain, or worse yet staying in your clothing and linens. Detergents left in cloth are bad for the fabric and bad for your skin.

First off, you should check to see whether you have been filling your measure to the manufacturer suggested line. Most of us use the cap to measure the detergent. And most caps have several lines on them. Do you know what they all mean? If you have been filling the cap to the top, it is likely you have been using way more detergent than the manufacturer recommends! Check out the helpful pictures at Beware the Laundry Detergent Capto see what I mean. If you have been overfilling your measure, start cutting back right now!

If you have really hard water (lots of minerals in it), you will probably need to use the recommended amount of detergent. Laundry additives such as Borax boost the performance of your detergent by softening the water, allowing the detergent to work better. If you have lightly or normally soiled clothes and hard water, you don't necessarily need more soap to get the clothes clean. In that situation, try cutting back on the laundry detergent, and adding a quarter to a half cup of Borax to your load.

But if your water is softer, and especially if you use a water softener, you probably don't need to use the recommended amount. Try cutting it in half and see if your clothes are still coming out clean.

Whatever your laundry situation, experiment to see what works for you. You might be surprised to find how little detergent you actually need to get your clothes sparkly clean!

References:

http://www.virtualsciencefair.org/2006/park6l2/discussion.htm
http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200710/1193407026.html