Imagine this. You are traveling to another city or other place and there is no laundry detergent available. You put your shirt and shorts on and you are planning to use them again tomorrow or the other day after tomorrow. It will become dirty at the end of the day. Right? Maybe you spill some sauce, dust, or grease stains on it.
Whatever you spilled on it, something bad happened and now both your shirt and shorts are dirty. Now you are in a hotel room and there is hand soap and use it as a laundry detergent. Do you think it will help? Right? Both of them are used for cleaning. Right?
Since both of them are used for cleaning, I can get the same results. Now you squirt the hand soap on your dirt shirt and shorts and you think you will get the best results. Is this true? Can you wash your clothes with hand soap? Let us find out the answer!
Can you wash your clothes with hand soap? Hand soaps are not very effective to clean your clothes. The ingredients of laundry detergent are different from hand soap. Because there are stains in our clothes that are hard to remove, ingredients in laundry detergent are stronger than regular soap. It is better to pack a laundry pod or laundry tablet when you travel.
I know some of you reading this are using your hand soap to wash your clothes, which is why you are finding the answer if you are doing the right thing. I will tell you no. You might think that your hand soap can make your clothes clean but it won’t. Yes! It can make your clothes smell good but it will not clean them properly like how laundry detergent cleans your clothes.
Today, we will dive deeper into this topic and I will explain to you more about why you can’t use your hand soap to wash your dirty clothes. Also, I will be telling you some tips that you need to do so that you will know what you should do if you run out of laundry detergent. You will learn a lot of things about this topic. So, if you are ready to learn, let us move on!
Can You Wash Your Clothes With Hand Soap?
I know the feeling of traveling and you don’t have any laundry detergent to use for your clothes. It can be tempting to use hand soap with your clothes in this kind of scenario.
Squirting a few pumps of hand soap into your clothes and running them under water might make you think that you are cleaning your clothes. However, the truth is, you might just be wasting some hand soap.
Ingredients used in laundry detergent are different from those in hand soap. Because of the different stains that can get in your clothes and how difficult it is to clean your clothes, ingredients in laundry detergent are stronger than hand soap.
The surfactants inside the laundry detergent serve to separate stains, grease, and other particles from clothes and have them be washed away with water. Yes! Hand soap might work. However, the chances are very low.
There are different types of hand soap. All of these hand soaps work perfectly to clean out your hands and restore moisture to your skin. Some of them are even antibacterial.
However, when you see closely or observe each hand soap, many companies decided to put colors, fragrances, artificial thickeners, and extra sudsing on their hand soap.
All of these things companies put on their hand soap can stain your clothes and not clean them. Laundry detergents are made to either be colorless or to have colors that do not interact with the colors on clothes.
So, instead of using hand soap on your clothes, use something else to avoid big problems. Your best bet to wash your clothes on the go is to either pack or buy a laundry pod or laundry tablet. You can go to the closest grocery store to buy these or a laundry detergent. Don’t settle for hand soap.
What Should I Do If I Ran Out Of Detergent?
If you run out of detergent, it can be tempting to use other soap to wash your clothes. But most of the time, people use hand soap if they run out of detergent, which is not a good idea as I have explained above.
If you run out of detergent, you can use one cup of borax or baking soda for a normal load. Your clothes will be cleaner than you imagine thanks to the action of cleaning agents, water, and agitation from the washer.
What Can I Use If I Don’t Have Detergent?
But what if you don’t have a detergent? You did not run out of detergent because you don’t have one. What should you do?
The first thing I can advise you, which is very easy, is to buy a detergent. You need it for your clothes unless you want your clothes to look dirty and smell very bad when you wear them. Detergent is made specifically for clothes. It has strong chemicals that can kill bacteria and dirt on your clothes.
Second, you can use a laundry pod or laundry tablet to wash your clothes. These things are available in the store. You just have to look at which brand is better and trusted by many people. Never use hand soap. Instead, buy these two if you have no detergent.
Can You Wash Your Clothes With Dish Soap?
So it is clear that it is a very bad idea to use hand soap to wash your clothes. But what about other things like dish soap? Can you wash your clothes with dish soap?
Yes! Dish soap can clean your clothes as well. However, it is important to keep in mind that you will use a lot less dish soap. If you use too much dish soap, it will cause your washing machine to overflow with bubbles.
Even though dish soap can clean your clothes, I still don’t recommend you to use it for your clothes. It is better to buy laundry detergent because it is made specifically for your clothes. So it means laundry detergent is more effective in cleaning your clothes than dish soap.
Does Hand Soap Stain Clothes?
Yes! Hand soap can stain your clothes if you use it for your clothes. This is one of the reasons why I tell you not to use your hand soap with your clothes. It is better to use laundry detergent than to risk your clothes having stains by using hand soap.
Final Words
Yes! You can use hand soap to wash your clothes but there are risks such as not getting the cleaner version of your clothes, leaving stains on your clothes because of the hand soap, and making your clothes at risk of getting torn apart. It is still better to use laundry detergent than hand soap in washing your clothes.