Are you using too much detergent?
In the laundry room, Americans are prone to overkill. They pour too much detergent into their washing machines.
Generations of consumers have washed clothes with the idea that more soap means cleaner laundry. But the sudsy habits are creating messy problems from dingy clothing to worn machines.
Making matters worse, the latest generation of detergents are concentrated and so require users to use less product-per-washload than ever before. And more consumers are buying high-efficiency washers, which need far less water than older models. It’s a combination begging for more careful measuring—something Americans stubbornly resist.
Read the rest of this story on the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703808904575025021214910714.html
a man repairing our washer a couple years ago told me to use no more than HALF of the recommended amount of soap in our washer, and to use MORE water. He said the soap doesnt really get the clothes clean…the water does. The detergent causes dirt to cling to it, and the water washes it all away, but that it doesn’t take much soap at all! So even with the concentrated detergents, we need to use only a little teeny bit! And excess soap actually wears out our clothes faster!