Found this whilst researching another matter.
Mildy Acidic Laudry Detergent With Foam Control
- Thread starter launderess
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Interesting concept. But it ignores the fact that alkaline wash water is extremely useful for cleaning oily/greasy stains from most fabrics. I would think that a "mildly acidic" laundry detergent of the type described would have problems with heavily soiled laundry. One might as well use a pH balanced shampoo in a top loader with lukewarm water.
The detergent in question was for "fine" laundry such as wools, silks, cottons and such, will see if have the full article still in my daily cache.
There are a number of commercial laundry products that are somewhat acidic, they are mainly used for "wet-cleaning" and in some cases laundering coloured items like shirts.
L.
There are a number of commercial laundry products that are somewhat acidic, they are mainly used for "wet-cleaning" and in some cases laundering coloured items like shirts.
L.
Thanks Laundress, but Foam Control! I guess I'm just not meant to have dog hair free clothes LoL.
Have found to deal with pet hair, best to give items lots of room to wash and plenty of rinses. Had a horrible time with cat hair on my duvet covers and such but soon learned that by laundering each item by itself and or using the highest water level in my Miele (almost 1/2 way up the door or a tad higher), much of the hair was gone even when using low foaming detergent. Much of the proof behind this theory could be seen in the lint trap that filters wash water over the sink drain. Sometimes would have to clean it off between drain/spin cycles as it became clogged with lint/pet hair.
L.
L.
whirlcool
Well-known member
I guess I'm just not meant to have dog hair free clothes LoL.
Robert:
Somewhere down in your basement, isn't there a GE FilterFlow? They are the best on dog hair I have ever seen!
Robert:
Somewhere down in your basement, isn't there a GE FilterFlow? They are the best on dog hair I have ever seen!
My GE filter flo is sort of so-so on cat hair (quite a bit finer and hence more tenacious than coarser dog hair). You can certainly see some hair balls in the filter pan at the end of a wash, but more seemed to wind up in the dryer lint filter. The Neptune front load washer doesn't remove much cat hair, either, even though it has relatively high water levels for an American front loader. Again, the Neptune dryer does a very good job of shaking it loose and capturing it on a filter. This is even after line drying the item and then doing a no-heat air-fluff in the dryer.
I would imagine that a solid tub GE filter-flo might do better (if such a beast exists!) with handling pet hair than the '78 perforated model I have.
I would imagine that a solid tub GE filter-flo might do better (if such a beast exists!) with handling pet hair than the '78 perforated model I have.
This one is for you please Launderess:
Speaing of mildly acidic, what is the PH balance of oxygen bleach? Is it basic/alkaline?
I am asking to be able to figure-out how to chemically neutralize it in the rinse. The sutff generally give me the itchies, no matter how well-rinsed. With chlorine bleach, I simply rinse with white vinegar. Base + acid => salt + water. Would this work with oxygen bleach as well?
Speaing of mildly acidic, what is the PH balance of oxygen bleach? Is it basic/alkaline?
I am asking to be able to figure-out how to chemically neutralize it in the rinse. The sutff generally give me the itchies, no matter how well-rinsed. With chlorine bleach, I simply rinse with white vinegar. Base + acid => salt + water. Would this work with oxygen bleach as well?
If we're speaking of sodium perborate or sodium percarbonate, they are both alkaline in nature and need to be for best results. However some products add more alkaline substances, such as washing soda which ups the pH level for better bleaching.
Which oxygen bleach is causing you trouble? If you are speaking of sodium perborate, then it is a very common problem as the substance is very difficult to rinse. You might try a detergent with sodium percarbonate bleach or adding it separately (Ecover sells pure sodium percarbonate), to a detergent that is bleach free.
White vinegar will neutralise oxygen bleach residue by the way.
L.
Which oxygen bleach is causing you trouble? If you are speaking of sodium perborate, then it is a very common problem as the substance is very difficult to rinse. You might try a detergent with sodium percarbonate bleach or adding it separately (Ecover sells pure sodium percarbonate), to a detergent that is bleach free.
White vinegar will neutralise oxygen bleach residue by the way.
L.
Regarding Sodium Perborate
While researching another matter, found several sources that state perborates can cause skin irritation. Which may explain why so many persons have problems with Tide with Bleach, which is loaded with the stuff. You might try switching to a percarbonate based oxygen bleach or hydrogen peroxide.
L.
While researching another matter, found several sources that state perborates can cause skin irritation. Which may explain why so many persons have problems with Tide with Bleach, which is loaded with the stuff. You might try switching to a percarbonate based oxygen bleach or hydrogen peroxide.
L.
lederstiefel1
Well-known member
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- May 18, 2006
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- 484
I found a hint in my old leaflets from the 1930s when the first non-soap based detergents came onto the German market for woollens and silks and stuff like other delicates. As they usually do not content anionic surfactants but non-ionic surfactants they gave a hint to wash even very delicate items as following: add half a cup of vinegar to the suds as well as 1-2 tablespoons full of glycerin and woollens will never shrink or become harsh but fluffy and soft!
Try that together with a detergent like PERWOLL from Henkel/Germany or even WOOLITE! And always remember that really expensive and delicate woollens should NEVER be washed mechanically by a machine! Always give them a handwash and do not even spin them but roll them up in big towels after having squeezed them out gently and knead the rolled towel to get the water out, then dry them FLAT on a rack! They will stay for ages like new - this is better than dry-cleaning - and cheaper as well!!
Ralf
Try that together with a detergent like PERWOLL from Henkel/Germany or even WOOLITE! And always remember that really expensive and delicate woollens should NEVER be washed mechanically by a machine! Always give them a handwash and do not even spin them but roll them up in big towels after having squeezed them out gently and knead the rolled towel to get the water out, then dry them FLAT on a rack! They will stay for ages like new - this is better than dry-cleaning - and cheaper as well!!
Ralf
Wash everything from Prada cashmeres to vintage wool pulls and blankets in my Miele with no troubles. Only modification is that I shorten the wash cycle by stopping the wool wash cycle after five minutes, then moving the dial to drain/spin. On the wool cycle my Miele does 30 seconds of fast spinning which is fine. Wool is a very elastic fiber and not harmed by fast spinning, in fact the WoolMark people recommend it as items emerge almost dry.
After washing simply lay flat on a thick towel and pin/block into shape to dry.
Have several bottles of Perwol (nabbed at a great price), and an almost full box of Perwol powder (sadly no longer sold by Miele USA), but would never use Woolite. It is nothing more than SLS.
L.
After washing simply lay flat on a thick towel and pin/block into shape to dry.
Have several bottles of Perwol (nabbed at a great price), and an almost full box of Perwol powder (sadly no longer sold by Miele USA), but would never use Woolite. It is nothing more than SLS.
L.
I doubt that a pH balanced or mildly acidic laundry detergent is going to do much in the way of saponifying greasy/oily soils.
But perhaps that's the point.
But perhaps that's the point.
From what one has been researching/reading, the point of keeping the pH neutral/mildly acidic even for normal laundry is to help prevent calcium "encrustation" of laundry amoung other things.
As previously posted by moi, high alkaline washing conditions clean well partly because they cause textile fibers to swell, releasing soils. However while those textile fibers are open minerals found within water and those coming from the soiled linens themselves also will pass into the textile fibers. As rinsing occurs and the laundry pH returns to neutral or near neutral the textile fibers contract trapping the minerals within fibers. This is what causes that scratchy hard feeling to textiles washed in high pH solutions such as detergents heavy on washing soda, and or when that substance is added too much as a laundry aid/booster. One can see the difference also in that laundry washed in liquid detergents, which use other types of builders than the common washg soda found in powders, normally leaves laundry softer.
To counteract the aforementioned mineral deposits, commercial laundries and others add some sort of mild acid to the final rinse bath (aka, laundry sour), to help disslove the calcium. However this works only so well, and can cause other problems as both cotton and linen fibers are damaged by acids, as are some dyes. The repeated use of unbuffered and or to strong laundry sours and or the incomplete removal of the acid will lead to textile weakening.
To sum up all this palaver, hence the rationale behind using laundry detergents with mild pH levels.
Commercial laundries like low or neutral pH detergents because they now can skip the souring step of the wash process, saving money and time.
As for removing heavy greasy/oily soils, there are many pH neutral surfactants that will do the job, not to mention various enzymes. However it should be noted that in general typically most persons do not get their laundry so heavily soiled that it requires all out beat down cleaning. For the odd occasion of really heavy greasy dirt or stains there are vaious pre-treatment products ranging from Fels soap to Lestoil to simply adding washing soda.
L.
As previously posted by moi, high alkaline washing conditions clean well partly because they cause textile fibers to swell, releasing soils. However while those textile fibers are open minerals found within water and those coming from the soiled linens themselves also will pass into the textile fibers. As rinsing occurs and the laundry pH returns to neutral or near neutral the textile fibers contract trapping the minerals within fibers. This is what causes that scratchy hard feeling to textiles washed in high pH solutions such as detergents heavy on washing soda, and or when that substance is added too much as a laundry aid/booster. One can see the difference also in that laundry washed in liquid detergents, which use other types of builders than the common washg soda found in powders, normally leaves laundry softer.
To counteract the aforementioned mineral deposits, commercial laundries and others add some sort of mild acid to the final rinse bath (aka, laundry sour), to help disslove the calcium. However this works only so well, and can cause other problems as both cotton and linen fibers are damaged by acids, as are some dyes. The repeated use of unbuffered and or to strong laundry sours and or the incomplete removal of the acid will lead to textile weakening.
To sum up all this palaver, hence the rationale behind using laundry detergents with mild pH levels.
Commercial laundries like low or neutral pH detergents because they now can skip the souring step of the wash process, saving money and time.
As for removing heavy greasy/oily soils, there are many pH neutral surfactants that will do the job, not to mention various enzymes. However it should be noted that in general typically most persons do not get their laundry so heavily soiled that it requires all out beat down cleaning. For the odd occasion of really heavy greasy dirt or stains there are vaious pre-treatment products ranging from Fels soap to Lestoil to simply adding washing soda.
L.
Um, the best way to boost a weakly cleansing laundry detergent, is, of course, STPP. It has the added advantage of not being quite as alkaline as washing soda, so it's a bit more gentle on fabrics.
While I could see that swelled fabric fibers could trap calcium deposits, the best solution for that may be to prevent such deposits in the first place: by using a non-precipitating water softener like STPP. Zeolites may also do the trick. The main water softener in liquids is sodium citrate, which is semi-precipitating. Some liquids might use EDTA (ethylene diamine tetraacetate) as a mineral sequestering agent, but this is a more expensive ingredient and probably limited to high end fine fabric laundry products. Used to use EDTA a lot in the lab - it binds calcium and magnesium ions, without which cells grown in culture lose their grip on their plastic substrates (culture flasks), so they can be removed and divided into more flasks with relatively minimal damage. The chemical term for such "sequesterants" is "chelating agent". I believe "chela" means "claw" in latin or greek, and the chelating agent grabs the mineral ions like a claw and won't let them go... lol...
But as usual I digress.
While I could see that swelled fabric fibers could trap calcium deposits, the best solution for that may be to prevent such deposits in the first place: by using a non-precipitating water softener like STPP. Zeolites may also do the trick. The main water softener in liquids is sodium citrate, which is semi-precipitating. Some liquids might use EDTA (ethylene diamine tetraacetate) as a mineral sequestering agent, but this is a more expensive ingredient and probably limited to high end fine fabric laundry products. Used to use EDTA a lot in the lab - it binds calcium and magnesium ions, without which cells grown in culture lose their grip on their plastic substrates (culture flasks), so they can be removed and divided into more flasks with relatively minimal damage. The chemical term for such "sequesterants" is "chelating agent". I believe "chela" means "claw" in latin or greek, and the chelating agent grabs the mineral ions like a claw and won't let them go... lol...
But as usual I digress.
Well yes, phosphates and Zeolites would help matters,but both are fast vanishing from laundry products on both sides of the pond. Zeolites along with borax, borates, sodium perborate is on the EU's list of banned or soon to be banned substances because of their effect on waterways when grey water is discharged into sewer systems.
Zeolites are on the EU's list of to-be-banned substances? I find that hard to believe... zeolites are little more than aluminum silicate and similar relatively inert compounds. As far as I can tell, they have little to no negative environmental effects in waste water discharge.
Well both sides are presenting their cases and thing will have to go on from there.
The phosphate producers of Europe claim (and rightly so) that Zeolites are insoluble in water thus contribute to the amount of sludge which must be removed from waste treatment plants. Also Zeolites do not rinse from laundry easily (again, so they claim), which leads to more rinsing which uses more water. Finally Zeolites contribute to aluminium in waste water which in turn ends up in waterways.
The "Green" people counter that phosphates have their own set of problems and whatever Zeolites short falls, they are a better than STPP.
What both sides do agree on is that Zeolites in of themselves do not replace phosphates, which means detergent makers have to reformulate their products and not simply remove STPP and slot in Zeolites. As one has stated repeately, it takes several chemicals to equal all the functions of STPP.
L.
The phosphate producers of Europe claim (and rightly so) that Zeolites are insoluble in water thus contribute to the amount of sludge which must be removed from waste treatment plants. Also Zeolites do not rinse from laundry easily (again, so they claim), which leads to more rinsing which uses more water. Finally Zeolites contribute to aluminium in waste water which in turn ends up in waterways.
The "Green" people counter that phosphates have their own set of problems and whatever Zeolites short falls, they are a better than STPP.
What both sides do agree on is that Zeolites in of themselves do not replace phosphates, which means detergent makers have to reformulate their products and not simply remove STPP and slot in Zeolites. As one has stated repeately, it takes several chemicals to equal all the functions of STPP.
L.
