Dawn dish soap as laundry detergent

[polkanut]

One of my co-workers recently bought his 1st home at age 26 having previously lived at home. Well, over the weekend he ran out of laundry detergent so he thought he'd use the Dawn as a substitute. He didn't go into detail as to what happened. I've never heard of this being done before so I'm curious as to what this could do to someone's laundry or washer. I'm thinking massive suds-lock.

 

[toggleswitch]

FOAM PARTY!

YES!
Have seen this in front-loaders in laundromats!
MASSIVE sudsing!

 

[polkanut]

It must be a B**** to rinse out. No need to add detergent next time around (HAHA).

 

[sarah]

Works great as a grease spotter

I use Dawn as a grease spotter and it works great. I've never had problems with too many suds. I squirt a little on then brush or rub and wash.

Sarah

 

[goatfarmer]

I use dish soap to clean rags at my shop,I'm out of laundry detergent,and keep forgetting to buy some.Don't use much,does a good job.

kennyGF

 

[chad_hauris]

Don't use it in dishwasher

When I was a kid we rented a cottage at the beach that had a dishwasher: not having one at home I figured regular dish liquid would work in it... there ended up being about a foot of suds all over the kitchen floor! Probably the same results would ensue with a clothes washer.

What DOES work as a substitute laundry detergent is Mr. Clean liquid. Pine Sol will work too in the laundry in a pinch.

 

[appnut]

My mom uses Dawn for treating greasy spots on clothes too. Just a li'l dab will do ya.

Chad, my dad did the same thing, but it was with Tide in our new 1954 Apex dishwasher. Poor man, he didn't need any further flustering. He was Mr. Mom & Dad as my mother was 100% bedridden trying to hold on to me. So the dishwasher was purchased to help him out. He ran out of DW detergent and decided to use Tide. Had a very clean floor afterward lol.