You must have always been using laundry detergent for washing clothes, but do you know that this powerful cleaning agent can do a lot more than you have ever expected or thought. We know that it is pretty enticing to know that many of our everyday household items can do many other things to save us from the hustle.
By reading this article, you will find out that laundry detergent is a substitute for many other things, and it will compel you to keep your laundry racks packed with the detergent. Furthermore, we will suggest that go for the cheaper brands.
Clean the oil spills
Cleaning oil spills is one of the tricky jobs; no matter how much you try to mop it, the place still will have the stickiness of the oil and the stain. There are some specialized products available in the market to clean any spilt oil, but that will for sure cost you a considerable amount of money.
Fortunately, you can save your day if you have laundry detergent at home. Just pour some powdered detergent on the oil spill followed by few drops of water and leave it overnight. The laundry detergent will soak up all the oil and all you have to do in the morning is spray up the mixture.
Removing yellow stains from pillows
After few washes, the beautiful white pillow cover turned into some nasty yellow and off-white color that does not go away no matter how many times we wash it. Of course, we can cover up these yellow pillows with some good pillowcases, but we know the truth.
If you want to make your pillow covers as white and good as they were new, follow this formula; you will be surprised to see the results. Take one cup of laundry detergent, one cup of powdered dishwasher soap, one cup of bleach, and a half cup of borax, and soak you off-white pillow cover in this mixture for some times rinse them off.
Use Ice Cubes for Laundry
It’s just annoying when you know you still have to iron your shirt, but you’re already rushing to work every morning anyway. Then your boss scolds you, and you don’t even care about your shirt anymore, do you?
But we have a great hack for you because of that. With this trick, you don’t have to iron anymore. For this you need a washing machine with dryer or just a dryer. Once your laundry is done, put some ice cubes in your machine. Then, when you take your clothes out again, you have “ironed” clothes without wrinkles.
Why is that? The ice cubes melt, that’s why steam is created and that miraculously smooths your laundry. But don’t take too many ice cubes at once, a few are enough!
Baking Soda
Baking soda has proved itself as a handy friend for almost any and every problem encounter. It can combat any stains, be it greasy or enzymatic like grass or blood, very quickly. As a result, people are using baking soda to break down stains for more than 170 years.
Simply make a pre-treatment paste by adding six tablespoons of baking soda with 1/3 cup of warm water. Rub the paste on the stain but remember always do the patch test first. Test the baking soda paste on a small garment patch to check for colorfastness, color fading, or bleeding. When the paste dry, put the cloth in the machine for a regular wash.
Detergent for all-purpose
If you have run out of floor cleaner or window cleaner, or countertops cleaner, do not worry; we have one single solution for all these missing products, and that is your laundry detergent. Just mix the laundry detergent in hot water, and remember you can use any form of laundry detergent, be it powdered or liquid, and do your cleaning.
If you want to clean windows and countertops, put the mixture in a spray bottle, and voilà. You can even use this mixture to clean the outer body of refrigerators and even ovens; try to use the scented detergent, and your house will be fragrant all day long.
It’s your kitchen cleaner
You can clean your entire kitchen with laundry detergent, and it will be not just ordinary cleaning here; we are talking about degreasing the kitchen. Yes, you heard it right! It is possible to remove the stubborn grease sticking to your kitchen walls or your oven or stove top.
Mix some liquid laundry detergent with bleach and some water, and be careful not to keep the quantity of bleach concentrated in the mixture. Spray or pour the mixture on the grease and wipe it with a damp cloth after some time. If the stains are tough, then let the mixture sit for half n hour.
Clear your garden from weeds and moss
You might not have any idea that a laundry detergent is such a versatile product, and you can use it anywhere in your house. Another unexpected use of the laundry detergent is clearing your garden from moss and weeds.
Sprinkle a cup or two of powdered laundry detergent on the weeds and moss and let it do its magic for roughly three to four days, and for sure, You will be stunned after seeing the results. After three or four days, the moss or weeds will start turning brown; when this happened, you remove the dead overgrown and hose the entire garden to rinse away the laundry detergent.
Clean your kid’s toys
The toys get dirty very quickly, which means they carry germs and bacteria and pose some risk to our kid’s health. So if you want to keep your kids from such undue health risk, keep cleaning their toys after some time.
The easiest and simple way to clean the toys is to use laundry detergent because they do not pose any complex chemicals and completely go away with the rinsing. The other harsh chemicals can be dangerous because the kids put their toys in the mouth and put them on their skin. You can clean the hard toys with any everyday laundry detergent spray and wash the stuffed toys with the detergent.
Unclog a drain
As we said earlier, the laundry detergent can soak and kill the enzymes of the oil, which means that it can also rid grime from your drain and make it unclog within minutes. So before calling a plumber, try this hack to clear your blocked drain with the laundry detergent.
Pour a pot of hot boiling water into the blocked drain and then put a quarter or half cup of liquid laundry detergent down the drain. Now let the mixture sit for some 10 minutes and then pour down an additional pot of hot boiling water down the drain, and together they will flush the clog right out.
Remove the soap marks and build-ups
The soap marks and the Kalk build-up around the shower or the bathtub or on the sink are very stubborn, and no matter what you do, they will appear for sure. There are different kalk removing products available in the market, but if you do not have any or run out of it, do not worry.
If you have powdered laundry detergent, mix it with some water and spread the mixture on the marks or the kalk and if you have liquid detergent, then spread the thick paste of the soap marks. Let it sit for few minutes, rub it with pressure and rinse it with hot water.
Refurbish your deck
With continuous usage, the decks lose their shine, and they also suffer due to changes in the seasons. After some time, you will see the shoe marks on your veranda deck and other damages it has gone through. All of these issues decrease the beauty of your entire home, but we have a fix for it, and it’s none other than our superhero!
Mix three-quarters of powdered laundry detergent in water and oxygen bleach and scrub your deck with this mixture. For better results, use the deck scrubber; otherwise, you can use any brush available at home. After rinsing, you will see that your deck color has refreshed.
Remove wrinkles from the clothes
The wrinkled dresses are most annoying, and it takes a lot of effort to fold such dresses and iron them perfectly. So if your dryer is not drying and ironing the dresses and if you are too busy to spend hours on hand ironing your dresses so do not worry, we will tell you how you can remove wrinkles from our dresses in no time.
All you have to do is fill a spray bottle with laundry detergent and water and spray your clothes with this mixture. Then, leave the dresses on a hanger, hanging somewhere, and the wrinkles will vanish within minutes. Your clothes will look and smell fresh too.
Remove stains from jars and vases
We spend a lot of money buying different decorative pieces and accessories for our houses; it makes them look fancy and attractive. But, unfortunately, these pieces get dirty with time, and the stains and grim on them, especially on vases and jars, are taking away the beauty of your house.
Removing the stubborn stains from the vases and jars adds some laundry detergent (our recommendation is pod) in hot water and lets the detergent dissolve completely. Now soak the stained jars and vases in this solution; after an hour and two, scrub them to remove the grim, rinse them, and they will look brand new.
Make your own Goop
Goop is an essential product for the people who have to do a lot of work with engines and oil. Goop and Gojo are products that are tailor-made to cut through the grease and grime quickly. The good thing about Goop is it leaves the hands soft without any irritation. If you are working with a lot of oil and engines, it is better to keep the Goop around, but if you do not have any, you can use the following mixture.
Mix one teaspoon of laundry detergent (Liquid) with one teaspoon of vegetable oil, rub it on your hands vigorously and then wash with regular soap.
Banish the molds
Molds are something that can be dangerous because if the indoor mold lands on some damp or wet spot, it starts growing, and they digest whatever they are growing on. So the molds can cause severe damage to the doors, roofs, pipes, and baseboards, etc.
There are different solutions available in the market to remove the molds, but the problem is they grow again. The laundry detergent solution with a bit of warm water not only removes the molds but also penetrates and gets rid of the problem forever, and it also leaves your walls and doors clean and fresh.
Clean your carpet
The carpets are very good at absorbing dust, and it is also challenging to remove the stains from them. But the good news is that you can clean your carpets with laundry detergent. The laundry detergents have some chemicals that, by default, can clean many types of fabrics, from clothing to carpets.
You can use laundry detergent whether you are hand washing your carpet or using a machine cleaner. If you have a vacuum cleaner that supports carpet cleaning, add some laundry detergent and water to it. Then, scrub the carpet with a bristled scrubbing brush; the detergent will clean the carpet, leaving it free of residue and fresh.
Use it as hand soap
If you run out of hand soap and cannot go to the grocery store to grab one, do not worry; you can use the laundry detergent as a hand soap. You can use this hack even if you are hosting and run out of hand soap in the middle of an event.
Just put some laundry detergent in the old empty hand soap dispenser and fill it with some water to thin the mixture, shake it gently, and Tadaa! Your hand soap is ready. This mixture is an excellent alternative to the sanitizer because the laundry detergent has cleansing and sanitizing properties.
Use it to DIY mopping solution
The cleaning enzymes in the laundry detergent are strong enough to clean all the dirt from the floor. The other reason that makes it the best floor cleaner is that it foams very nicely. The foam and enzymes in the laundry detergent release stubborn grime and dirt that stick to the floor.
Simply add your mop bucket with hot water and add some liquid detergent or a capsule to it, and your DIY floor cleaning solution is ready. When you are cleaning the floor, make sure to wring out maximum water from the mop because to mop wet mop will leave streaks on the floor.
Clean the oven racks
As we know by now that the laundry detergent has properties of degreasing, then why let the oven racks dirty. Yes, it is possible to clean the oven racks from the crusty, black dirt built-ups. Unfortunately, the oven grim is so stubborn that there will still be some dirt left on it if you spend hours scrubbing them.
The smart trick for cleaning greasy oven racks is to place them in a bathtub or any large bin filled with hot water. Next, add some three to four cups of laundry detergent to let the shelves submerged in this solution overnight. Then, scrub away the grease with a sponge or soft-bristled brush.
Pretreat the stains
We often put stained clothes and other items in the washing machine, and when we take it out, the stains have a little faded away but are still there. So the best practice is to pretreat the stains before washing them.
Many stains that we considered stubborn such as grass and blood van be remove with this trick. The pre-treatment of these stains does not mean that you have to buy separate products for them; they can be pretreated with straight laundry detergent. Pour liquid detergent directly on the stain, rub the fabric gently, or use a soft-bristled toothbrush in a circular motion, then put them in for regular washing procedure.
Use it as plant fertilizer
When you think of the daily household items to use as fertilizer, the laundry detergent will be the last thing to come to your mind. But it is true that laundry detergent is a good fertilizer and helps to green up your lawn. You can use it in any form like you can sprinkle powdered laundry detergent in your yard, or you can mix some liquid detergent with water and water plants with this mixture, and you can also use the gray, dirty washing water.
The detergent does not let the nutrients target your plants efficiently by breaking down the barriers in the soil, such as nitrogen and phosphate.
Clean the makeup brushes
It is tough to remove all the foundation and highlighter build-up on the makeup brushes. The makeup brushes need regular cleaning; otherwise, they will harbor dirt which can quickly transfer to your skin. You can clean the brushes with some ordinary household products such as laundry detergent.
Pour some liquid laundry detergent into the hot or warm water and let the brushes soak in it for a good 30 or 40 minutes. Then, rinse them, and if there is any residue left, repeat the process until they are clean. You can also rub the bristles with a towel to remove the remaining debris.
Lemon Juice
Lemon juice as a natural stain remover removes stains from clothes, plastics, cups, etc. Due to the acidity in the lemon juice, it serves as a bleaching agent, penetrates the fabric, and removes any stains such as grease, rust, and grout.
You can remove the grease and rust stains by making a paste of lemon juice and cream of tartar and paste and rub it over the stain. You can remove tea or grout stain by pouring little lemon juice on the stain, rub it with a soft bristle brush and let it dry for 30 minutes and rinse it.
Talc, chalk, and cornstarch
There are so many household items that we never thought van have used other than their intended uses. Some of such ordinary household items are baby powders or talc powder, cornstarch, and chalk powder. All of them are best at absorbing excessive oil.
Take the baby powder or talc powder or chalk powder or cornstarch, whatever is available at home, and spread them on an oil spill or stain. Let these substances sit for at least 10 and a maximum of 20 minutes on the stained area. Then, wash the fabric as directed by the label on the clothing, and the stain will be history.
Table salt
Table salt has many uses around our houses besides just cooking. You can remove the stain from the clothes with plain table salt. It is suitable for some stubborn stains like rust and red wine stains—the red wine when a spill on the dress or table cloth leaves a dark red color.
Sprinkle the salt on the stain as soon as you can before it sets; let the salt absorb all the wine from the fragments of the cloth for some time. Now rub the cloth gently, wash it thoroughly because if you do not, the salt will leave a white mark on the fabric.
