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Burning questions about soap

Minoosh

Penultimate Amazing
Minoosh
Joined
Jul 15, 2011
Messages
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I'm running low on dish soap (washing up liquid). Would it be OK to use shampoo or laundry detergent?

Other questions: Is it OK to use puppy shampoo to wash clothes? Should I really lather, rinse and repeat? I often cut the laundry soap by 1/2 or more, figuring the detergent companies want me to use extra.

There's that camping soap - Dr. Bruners - that is supposed to be OK for everything and I've used it for clothes, body, dishes & laundry. It's true soap, I believe, as opposed to detergent, which I seem to recall is something different.

Anyway I cross-use different stuff all the time and wondered what the differences were.

Do the bubbles suck up the dirt? Does it matter that Dove is one-quarter cleansing cream?
 
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Skeptical Greg said:
I'm sure Martha StewartTM would not approve.
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The reason I asked here is, to hear from people with nothing to sell. Martha would probably teach me how to make my own soap out of rosemary and olive oil, with a cute little burlap string around it and ideas for making a basket out of dried twigs. Can't cope.
 
I think shampoo would leave some sort of hair conditioning residue on your plates.

I have used bar soap as shampoo, without any ill effects. YMMV if you care more about your hair than I do.

One thing you cannot do is use hand-dishwashing soap in an automatic dishwasher. There's actually a wikihow for cleaning this mess up, so it must be a common thing people try.
 
I suggest using shampoo for anything other than washing hair would be expensive. You might have problems dissolving soap if you want to use it for anything other than washing hands. You can use it to wash your hair. That is if you do not have very oily hair.
 
phildonnia said:
I think shampoo would leave some sort of hair conditioning residue on your plates.

I have used bar soap as shampoo, without any ill effects. YMMV if you care more about your hair than I do.

One thing you cannot do is use hand-dishwashing soap in an automatic dishwasher. There's actually a wikihow for cleaning this mess up, so it must be a common thing people try.
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Detergents for use in dishwashers and (laundry) washing machines needs to be low-sudsing, or you will end up with a huge mess on your hands. I would not recommend making any substitutions in that regard.
 
Check the ingredients lists for "TEA-Lauryl Sulphate". It seems to be the major component of most of the household liquids except the most caustic stuff, like dish washer detergent. That is good stuff for really grimey things, but dries hands and burns in scratches. I use it in the laundry for greasy clothes.

I use the liquids pretty much interchangeably, except I only shampoo a couple times a year. The rest of the times it's just a massage under the shower. But the shampoo in the shower is pretty good for getting the grease off too, and scrubbing under the fingernails.

ANYTHING is better than Octagon soap.
 
I think Palmolive mixed with gasoline was the original 'Burning Soap" in question. ;)
 
Then again, Dr Bronner's soap can be used for absolutely any purpose imaginable.
 
phildonnia said:
One thing you cannot do is use hand-dishwashing soap in an automatic dishwasher. There's actually a wikihow for cleaning this mess up, so it must be a common thing people try.
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I did it. The results were spectacular. Great gobs of foam churning out of the dishwasher.

Thanks for the link SG!
 
Most liquid soap is either sodium laurel sulphate or sodium laureth sulphate.
 
rjh01 said:
I suggest using shampoo for anything other than washing hair would be expensive.
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When I got a dog like a sucker I bought a big bottle of puppy soap. So I had it lying around. Couldn't use it on the dog, could I? It had grown up!
 
The dog shampoo recipe I used was half dish soap and half vinegar, diluted with water. I don't know about the necessity of "pH balanced for dogs" was, but it fersure got rid of the skunk smell. The recipe called for glycerine too, but I don' have any at 11:00 at night.
 
When laundry detergents first became popular, a sudsing agent was added to make it more familiar for people that had gotten used to soap. It had nothing to do with cleaning.

Soap works as a go-between with the non-polar solvent (water) and the polar greasy filth.
 
Which brings up another burning question about soap:

Does the absence of bubbles in the sink mean that the dish soap's cleaning power is all used up, or only that the bubble making component is gone? Are there two components?
 
casebro said:
Which brings up another burning question about soap:

Does the absence of bubbles in the sink mean that the dish soap's cleaning power is all used up, or only that the bubble making component is gone? Are there two components?
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I've noticed that if you add the detergent after the sink is full of water, and just mix it in, you don't get any bubbles at all. It seems to me that the bubbles are just a temporary effect of air being forcibly mixed with water at the point where the water from the tap is strikes the water in the sink.
 
quarky said:
Soap works as a go-between with the non-polar solvent (water) and the polar greasy filth.
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I think you have that backwards: water is polar, and it's the filthy grease which isn't polar. But yes, soap is the go-between, with a polar side and a non-polar side.
 
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