You know you’re getting old when you get really excited about good laundry products, right?! Right. Well that’s at least how I feel anyway. And that’s saying a LOT, especially considering I’m not the biggest fan of laundry. In fact, I’d rather wash dishes or sweep the floor or pretty much do any other household chore besides fold a load of clothes. But lately I’ve become obsessed with the products I’m using and in a weird way that makes doing laundry a teensy bit more fun. Plus the cool part is that I totally detoxified our laundry routine, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I thought it might be fun to chat about this today, even though I know laundry isn’t the most exciting topic. BUT we all have to do it, so I figured this might be interesting to some of you!
So if you were following along last year you might remember that I got really interested in finding ways to clean up our home and start using safer, non-toxic products whenever I could. I finally made myself do a little bit of research and I was shocked to find that so many of the cleaning and household products I was bringing into our home were actually full of terrible and dangerous chemicals like formaldehyde. (Remember this article about the EPA hiding proof that formaldehyde is linked to cancer?!) Anyway, I decided to ditch a lot of the old stuff I was using and make the switch to safer products. I signed up with Young Living and of the first things I ordered was their Thieves laundry soap, which is totally plant based and free of toxins.
I remember being super skeptical when I ordered the Thieves laundry soap for the first time. I didn’t know how well a plant based soap could actually clean our clothes, especially with little ones that make a lot of messes. I honestly expected not to like it–I know that sounds terrible, but it’s true. However, the opposite actually happened. I was impressed right away–even after just one load. This stuff is AMAZING. It’s all I’ve used to wash our clothes for 9 months now and I’m hooked. I’ll never go back to the junk I was using before.
What I LOVE:
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The plant-based formula is free from SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate), dyes, petrochemicals, formaldehyde, phosphates, synthetic perfume, and optical brighteners. NO CHEMICALS!!!!
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The Thieves laundry soap is highly concentrated, so a little goes a LONG way. I typically only do 1/4 capful for each load of laundry, which makes one bottle of Thieves cleaner last a little over two months in our household of five.
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It cleans our clothes just as well as the products I was using before, which is amazing.
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The formula contains a combination of Thieves, Jade Lemon, and Bergamot essential oils.
- I use it in our High Efficiency washer and I’ve had no issues with it at all. You can read more about it here.
The only thing I don’t love about the Thieves laundry soap is that there is very little scent. I mean the soap itself smells fresh and clean, but your clothes basically have no scent whatsoever after they are washed. I was missing that with our laundry, so I recently added in wool dryer balls to my routine.
If you’re not familiar with dryer balls you are really missing out my friend! These things are AWESOME. They’re an all natural and chemical-free alternative to dryer sheets, which are one of the most toxic things you can have in your home. Seriously, do a little research and see for yourself–they are awful. I definitely didn’t want to use those in our laundry, so I added in wool dryer balls to give our clothes a fresh scent. I have some from Young Living, but I also have this set of six from Amazon too!
How to Use Wool Dryer Balls
- For one regular size load of clothes I typically use four dryer balls.
- Right before you start the dryer, apply two drops of essential oil to each dryer ball. I love using Lavender for our laundry, but you an use any essential oil you prefer. (Just make sure it’s 100% pure!) Add more drops if you prefer a stronger scent on your clothes.
- Let the oil soak into the balls for about 15 seconds or so before you toss them into the dryer. This will help keep the oil off your clothes!
- Toss the balls in with the clothes and dry as you normally would. That’s it!
- Your clothes smell like they came straight from lavender heaven.
Benefits:
- Helps to to reduce wrinkles and eliminate static in clothes.
- You can use these for over a year without needing to replace them. Very budget friendly!
- No more harsh chemicals left on clothing (and then onto our skin) from dryer sheets. WINNING.
I’ve been doing our laundry this way for about 9 months now and I can honestly say I will never go back to using the old products I had before–it’s just not worth it. And even though I’m still not a big fan of laundry, I do get excited to think about the fact that our clothes, towels, and sheets no longer have toxic chemicals covering them. It’s scary stuff and detoxifying our laundry is just one thing I’m doing to reduce the chemicals in our household. And I know we can’t totally eliminate toxins from our homes, but this is one of the things I can control and one area that I can easily change for the better.
If you’re interested in learning more about Young Living you can head over to this page, where I share tons of info. I highly recommend looking into if you’re at all interested in using more safe, toxic free products in your home. You won’t regret it!
Thanks so much for stopping by today! Here’s a few more wellness posts you might want to check out while you’re here:
My Favorite Oil for Immune Support
How to Test Your Home for Formaldehyde
The whole thieves collection is fabulous. I only use dryer balls and have had no problems. Next try thieves hand soap and toothpaste. Reduces sickness and aids your immune system
Yes!! Love the Thieves hand soap. And we definitely need to try the toothpaste too.
I’m going to give these a try! I had absolutely no idea the laundry products were so toxic (sigh). Thanks for the info!!
P.S. Laundry was my least favorite too. One day I decided to pray for the person whose clothes I was loading or folding; changed everything! Gave me sweet times of prayer, helped me think about my little family in ways I might not have taken the time for, and made laundry duty fly by. Just thought I’d share that with you.❤️
Oh Rhonda, I love that so much! Thank you for sharing that with me. Such a great perspective! I’m going to do that. xo
Hi Sarah! I, like you, have been trying to clean up my household products for a couple of years now. I love the Thieves products as well, but have never tried the laundry detergent yet. However I recently discovered the Mrs. Meyer’s laundry detergent that I have been using is rated pretty high in the hazardous ingredients department. So your post came at a good time for me. Thanks so much for your posts! They are so helpful and I particularly enjoy your decorating and vintage finds.
Yeah unfortunately a lot of the Mrs. Meyer’s products do rate high for chemicals–which is a total bummer. I used to love and use those products regularly before I did a little research. It’s crazy how much junk is in these products we think are safe!
Ive been using the wool dryer balls with lavender essential oil for some time now and love them. Only funny thing is, they like to hide in my husbands dress shirt sleeves, corner of a fitted sheet or pillow case; so like an Easter egg hunt at times via dryer balls!
Thanks for the Thieves recommendation, I plan to research.
haha I totally know what you mean Blair!! Those little dryer balls get mixed in with everything.
I definitely need to try the Thieves detergent! I have the Thieves roller and it is my fave!