The Truth Behind Dish Soap For Laundry

There are times when you may run out of your favorite laundry detergent and you wonder whether you should take the chance and use dish soap. 

Dish soap is perfect to have in your kitchen but also to use instead of laundry detergent if that is all that you have on hand. I have been doing this for many years without any problems.  You have to make sure that you do not use any dish soap that has bleach in it to avoid destroying your clothes.

Dish soap is a degreaser which means that you can use it to pretreat your clothes that have grease stains. I like using Dawn dish soap for this but you can use any dish soap that you have on hand.

Now, to use it in your washing machine you have to make sure that you add just a short squeeze or two to avoid having soap suds everywhere. I do this when using an HE washing machine or any washing machine and I do not run into any problems.

The truth is the fact that dish soap is a cleaner like any other cleaner and it tends to be very mild.  Sometimes I will soak two of my delicate shirts in a mild solution of dish soap; rinse then wring them out and hanging them up to dry.  

It works very well for washing your bras, hats, and baby clothes. Just make sure that you use one that is very mild to use on baby clothes.

This will prevent them from getting damaged in the wash. I absolutely love washing my jeans with dish soap because they will dry much faster than when using laundry detergent.

Dish soap is perfect to use if you have a ring around the collar.  Pretreat let it sit for 20 to 30 minutes and then toss in your washing machine.

It is perfect to use while on vacation if you want to handwash clothes without buying a bottle of laundry detergent.

Sometimes, I stock up on dish soap at my local Dollar store to keep on hand.

Any Cons Using Dish Soap For Your Laundry?

1. If you are line drying your clothes, they will be crunchy or a bit hard but you will not have any problems when you dry them in your dryer.

2. If you do not use dish soap with fragrance your clothes will be clean but they will not have a perfumey smell like when using laundry detergent.

3. You have to carefully avoid using too much so you don't experience any problems.  Monitor your children when using to avoid having suds everywhere.

I did a video using dish soap to wash my clothes in my small portable washing machine if you want to check it out.