A Guide to Non-Toxic Laundry Stripping

Mar 18, 2021Sophie Boisseau and Karen Wang, PhDHome

For truly softer and cleaner laundry

By now, you’ve probably heard of laundry stripping. With a viral TikTok video and lots of articles and videos showing the dirty water that gets left behind, we were ready to give it a try! But, most of the laundry stripping recipes call for ingredients that have synthetic fragrances, dyes, preservatives, and fluorescent brighteners. Not only are these chemicals unnecessary, but they can be irritating to the skin and disrupt your hormones. That’s why we decided to come up with a non-toxic and natural laundry stripping recipe that doesn’t negatively affect our health and will still give us that satisfaction of seeing all of the dirt coming off our clothes and towels!

What is Laundry Stripping?

So why do we need to strip our laundry? Over time our clothes and linens can get buildup from things like hard water, detergents, fabric softeners, body oils, and sweat that don’t wash out completely in a normal washing cycle. So the process of laundry stripping aims at removing all of those built up residues and reviving your laundry so that it’s softer and actually clean. Have towels that feel crunchy and not as absorbent as they used to be? That build up that is potentially the reason why! If you have had your towels for a while, you may not even realize how much crispier they have gotten!

In order for laundry stripping to be effective there are key ingredients you need to have. The first is washing soda, which is not baking soda, but it is a popular cleaning additive that is great for removing stains, dissolving grease, softening water, and getting rid of unpleasant smells (1). The next ingredient, hydrogen peroxide (in liquid or powdered form), is a great disinfectant, brightener, and deodorizer that gets rid of all of the bacteria that might be stuck in between the fibers of your clothes (2). And if you have hard water, sodium citrate should definitely be added to your recipe because it is great at dissolving minerals and other build up from hard water (3). Finally you need powdered laundry detergent which contains surfactants and other enzymes that help break down most residue that is left on your clothes (4).

Based on our laundry stripping tests, we highly recommend you try it out! Doing this didn’t get rid of the slight pink tinge on one of the towels from when I washed it with something red, so it’s magical abilities are limited. But the water was completely filthy, just like in that viral video, our towels and sheets were softer and more absorbent, almost like they were new again! It definitely gave them a refresh and extended their life. So try out these different recipes to see which one works best for your laundry. We promise seeing the dirty water in your tub is totally worth it!

Keep reading to check out some of the recipes we tested for non-toxic laundry stripping!

Laundry Stripping recipes

For all of these recipes you want to fill your bathtub or top loading washing machine with the hottest water possible, just enough to cover your clothes or whatever else you may be stripping. Once the clothes are covered with water, mix in all of the ingredients until they are fully dissolved. The next step is to wait! After adding the ingredients, come and check on your clothes every hour and give them a little stir. Most people leave their clothes in the water until it gets completely cold, but if you have really dirty clothes you may want to leave them in the water for about 5 to 6 hours. Finally once you take your clothes out, the last step is to give them a wash in the washing machine!

Laundry Stripping with Borax

¼ cup borax

¼ cup washing soda

¼ cup sodium citrate (optional for hard water)

1 scoop non-toxic laundry detergent powder

There are a lot of conflicting opinions on whether or not Borax is a non-toxic ingredient. Check out this article on Borax to judge for yourself if you want to use it!

Laundry Stripping with Brightening Boost

1 cup hydrogen peroxide or ¼ cup Branch Basics Oxygen Boost or Molly’s Suds Oxygen Whitener (both contain sodium percarbonate, which is like powdered hydrogen peroxide)

¼ cup washing soda

1 scoop non-toxic laundry detergent powder

Some powdered laundry detergents we recommend

Since the regular powdered laundry detergent that gets recommended for stripping is full of harsh chemicals, we wanted to recommend some cleaner options that you could use instead!

a) Molly’s Suds Laundry Powder b) Grab Green 3-in-1 laundry detergent powder c) Charlie’s soap laundry powder d) Seventh Generation Natural Laundry detergent powder e) Meliora Cleaning Products Laundry Powder f) Biokleen free and clear laundry powder

Sources

Your Health