Very good laundry soap bars!

[kenmoreguy89]

Hi all, just wanted to share my last experience with a laundry soap I bought online, a Jamaican laundry soap named Blue Power.
Just bought it for curiosity and tonight after having done some laundry by hand I can say it really likes to me, googling I could see it is available online in USA and UK also, if you like using soap also it will surely make you happy.

Really worth what it cost, the soap suds wonderfully and you need just a few rubs to get the water soapy and sudsy, it is not like the usual bars that ends very soon, it's an high concentrated soap and a bar last longer than the average industrial soaps you buy....

Smell is nice also.

I will try it grated in the washer  soon...
Just wanted to share this experience.....

 

[arbilab]

Calcium carbonate (see ingredient list) is a very odd ingredient for a soap. On the mainland US and EU, calcium carbonate (CaCO3) is what makes hard water hard and we spend billions mitigating its effects.

Island water may not characteristically contain it. But since it's such a problem everywhere else, why add it to soap? Any residual left in fabric and dried becomes an abrasive crust that can only be dissolved by acid like citric (orange) or acetic (vinegar).

 

[stan]

I was scratched my head

Over the sme thing, but thought I'd wait for someone else to bring it up first.
Wonder if it could be some kind of mis print ?? Maybe they meant to print sodium carbonate??

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Believe me, where I live I've very hard water so if calcium carbonate was added I would have noticed it as water would have resulted so hard as hell, that would be kinda idiotic though to add calcium carbonate, of  course....
I believe as Stan said that indeed it is an error and they actually meant to write Sodium Carbonate or something like that which is actually soda ash/sal soda/washing soda......
Infact as we know washing soda makes water softer and because of this a booster for soaps, so that's why I find it is so different from the average soaps and last so long sudsing immediately, because it neutralize  the water hardness...
But I now think  that they maybe did not even mean washing soda, I didn't have any difficulty to rinse the typical slippery feeling  which is typical to the soda to be hard to rinse....so I believe it was different than soda, I used to wash with soaps and addiction of soda  sometimes and it was way different than washing with that soap, so if it was added was in a very little percentage, but being  in the top of the list that makes me wonder.... I washed darks with it also and they were just so soft after drying and not a sign of white residue then,  residues  and typical rigid feeling of the clothes  you usually get using washing soda in presence of very hard water as we have....for example while using Ajax laundry  soap bars which are all about  soda I usually get clothes as hard as a rock and black clothes turns out grey because of this chalky residue ( that is washed away afer a wash with normal detergent).....it's also true that ìs a sintetic soap bar made with surfactans, so no saponification process to make it...very strange consistency like a power detergent tablet but hard....
So I guess maybe they meant sodium bicarbonate...or a sort of different but  similar effect carbonate...  but not of course calcium carbonate.
But may be also that the action of the washing soda is actually changed during the saponification process being an alkali and reacting with the oil in the soapmaking process: (Strong alkali+oils+water) actually changing it's characteristics responsible for  it's residues build up  onto clothes and surfaces with hard water ( cause of white residues and rigid clothes) but keeping water softening properties similar of sodium bicarbonate with which I never got these residues...I'm not a chemist, do not know, just guessing... all I know it was way different than washing using soap+ washing soda togheter.....

Anyway....Amazing soap really! I will buy else!

 

[teknikleespekng]

Blue Power Country of Origin?

I found this article about Blue Power. They import the soap in pellets and just finish the production.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20020927/business/business4.html

 

[sudsmaster]

"Next month, Blue Power is also to be exported to New York for distribution in the United States."

Should be interesting.

Personally I'd cut the stuff with STPP, so as to avoid both the dreaded soap scum as well as sodium carbonate induced precipitates.

Personally I've gotten fairly good results just by grating bars of Ivory Soap with the Kitchenaid and boosting it with STPP. But I still use a modern HE powder (plus STPP) for the really dirty stuff.

 

[stan]

Freedy

This is truly a mystery, can't see that it's possible that int contains calcium carbonate. (Even though it says it contains it)

Over here we use to have a product to soften hard water called Calgon
( it's still sold, but dose not contain the STPP that it use to) the name of the product was a play on words, meaning calcium gone!

I'll see what I can find out about the labeling from this end, to solve the "mystery"

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Stan.

I'm sure that is a typo and they meant sodium carbonate....or potassium carbonate (potash), they also produce carbolic soap for body purposes so probably the added carbonate is this last one Potassium one...
Calgon over here is widely available also as long as millions of different products brands (including store brands) intended to contrast the water hardness for laundry, (just type on internet "anticalcare per lavatrice"- " washer anti-calcium")...but I don't use it.

The name of the product was changed from  italian name "Calfort" to the internatioanl name Calgon 10 years ago or so...
As you say  these products are made out of zeolite and policarboxilates now because of polluting beliefs (same ingredients already added in detergents also), but once were made out of STPP....

Most almost all laundry water softeners are made out of zeolites and carboxilates... but IMO they does not work as good as the old and almost banned STPP.....

The cheapest natural water softener that is still widely used is baking soda even if not as effective as zeolites and policarboxilates, washing soda along with cleansing, grease cutting properties  has good calcium precipitations properties but it gives such issues of hard laundry and white residues ...

A Calfort adver of 1991:

A now Calgon advertisement of today (2009):


 

[this post was last edited: 4/5/2013-12:31]