Laundry Detergent: Totally Unnecessary

gg3

Chemo, interesting about the "sham" in shampoo. The other syllable being "poo":-) Why do you say that? For me conventional soap dries out my skin, and a mild shampoo works as a general-purpose liquid soap for washing my hands as well as general body washing in the shower, along with washing my hair. Simpler than having to buy an additional product (liquid soap).

Nwildmand: thanks; that's what I call the "eco-industrial design" approach to cleaning tasks. Here's a couple more examples:

Purge water (the cold before the hot comes up) in the shower gets saved in a 5-gallon bucket, which gets poured as needed into a smaller bucket and used to flush the toilet. This gets me four flushes per day without additional water use.

Laundry: I have a twin-tub washer (Danby DTT-420), which enables an interesting form of water recycling. The wash cycle uses the saved rinse water from the previous load's rinse (this water is clean plus a bit of dye from rinsing colored clothes and a bit of lint that didn't get caught in the lint filter). The rinse cycle uses clean tapwater, in overflow mode to float away residual suds and suchlike. The overflow from rinse goes into the dirty dish bin. The remaining rinse water (a full washtub minus whatever water is taken up by the fabrics) stays in the wash/rinse compartment for use in the wash cycle for the next load. (In Australia, the standard practice with twin tub washers is to do multiple loads on the same day and wash two or three loads in the same wash water, but my method works better for me since clothes line space is limited to one load at a time.)

Vacuuming: About 15 years ago I needed a vacuum and didn't think much of it when buying a second-hand 1960s Kenmore for cheep, which just happened to have a 2-speed motor switch on the back. The High setting is 800 watts, which is pretty standard for middle-of-the-road vacuums. But the Low setting is about 400 watts and provides more than sufficient suction for routine cleaning. It also turns out that 2-speed vacuums are fairly rare, so I got lucky: half the power consumption for almost all the cleaning. We're planning a design project on vacuums for later this year. The goal is 400 watts for most cleaning applications, with a reusable cloth bag and option for disposable bag liners. (Note, Miele vacuums presently have a variable power control that goes down to 400 watts, so there is a solution available right now; prices range about $300 - 600 which is about middle to upper middle price range for a good vacuum.)

Heating: 64 degrees in the room, plus knit cap and scarf on. But the eco-industrial design aspect was the discovery that a regular heating pad, at 40 - 50 watts, applied to the chest or legs, keeps me warmer than heating the room to 68 - 70 degrees (1500 watts or equivalent in natural gas).

Refrigeration: New design of fridge under development, total power consumption estimated at 200 KWH/year. We're going to sell these online once the R&D phase is complete this year.

Chemo

I should have written thanks for the welcome to gg3 as well. As for the sham in shampoo, well I do recall that in the late 1950s/early 1960s here in Australia it was sold in little plastic tetra packs - tetrahedrons, apparently as single doses. It seemed to be intended for special purpose use, the night before the big date, the wedding day etc. During the 60s it was promoted more and more - by this time in bottles. Anyone recall "Richard Hudnut Egg Creme Shampoo" or was that just an Aussie brand?

Anyway, even then it seemed to be a "special job" product, for perhaps once a week use. Now if you hunt around the net on the subject a lot of people, even men seem to be convinced that it must be used every day. Nonsense I say. By and large the market and demand for it has been created by advertising from next to nothing. It is a product that nearly everyone can well do without. It is sham necessary.

It's no accident that it comes with a conditioner to be applied later. Why? To alleviate the damage the shampoo has done. Again, if you hunt around the net you will find postings saying "Don't use shampoo, but try the conditioner by itself". Me. I wash my thinning hair with plain water from the shower head every day. Once in a week I'll use a little soap.

Mother, now in her 80s has a full head of mostly black hair with frostings of white. She has never used more than a bottle or two of the stuff, preferring mild soap. Her mother never used it either. I suppose that my father knows what it's for, but has never used it and he has more hair than I do and it's still dark brown.

Now if you find it does less damage to your skin than soap, that's fine. I have found that shampoo dries my skin far more than soap. And I use very little of that.

Many things are capable of lowering water surface tension. Probably alcohol, for one. But such things don't necessarily have much effect on fats and oils. There are plant compounds, some called called saponins which have a soap - like action. Many of the saponins are very poisonous and have been used in cancer therapy, so I'd advise anyone not to use them.

However soaps and synthetic detergent/surfactants are designed to interact with fats and oils. Part of the molecule is fat-like, a long chain of carbon atoms which associate with fats and oils. At one or both ends is a charged region, positive, negative or opposite charges on each end. Some dispense with the charge and have water-like hydroxyl groups. These are the non-ionics. These charged areas or hydroxyl groups associate with water molecules. The effect is to form a suspension of oil or fats in water linked by the soap or synthetic molecules, an emulsion in fact.

One natural detergent or emulsifier is lecithin, obtained from eggs or soy beans but very common in most biological systems. It would be madly expensive to use it as a soap or detergent, but it is used as a food emulsifier.
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What? More expense?

dunewalker

Laurasia · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jul 10, 2004 Posts: 534

Chemo: I grew up in England and I remember Richard Hudnut Shampoo with Egg - It was sold in those little plastic things we called sachets. I'm certain that shampoo was never intended for daily use - it's only in the last 15 or so years since it was accepted that some people shampooed daily, and in the beginning I think it was teenagers only. Now I work with a woman in her mid-forties who shampoos, conditions, blow-dries every morning. What a waste of shampoo, water, time & energy.

Regards,

L.