About Me

We moved out to Portugal to live a frugal but better , simpler and peaceful life, our house is a very basic, semi ruin, up in the hills outside Figueiro Dos Vinhos, where we work our land, enjoy life with each other and our dogs, and hope to make the smallest carbon footprint we can,

Wednesday 6 April 2011

Washing Powder…. It stinks!

I don’t know quite what’s going on with the washing powder manufacturers lately, but I’m having real serious problems with their products. Not that I actually use them much, ages ago, I decided I didn’t really like the chemically smell of most perfumed washing powders. I’ve tried all the home made remedies, soda, vinegar etc. and while they don’t do a bad job and if I ran out I’d use them, I have settled on a washing liquid I can buy locally, it’s a very, very cheapy brand, so yes probably full of chemicals, but it has a very low level smell, and I only use about a third of what they tell you to put in, and I get a good result… for a fraction of the cost. And once it’s been out on the line to dry, all the smell you get from the washing is a nice clean air smell…

The trouble I’m having is other people’s laundry….

When I’m in the Internet space, or a café. The smell from other peoples washing powder is so strong I find my nose burning, and I often get a headache… It’s so overpowering. I find this sometimes with our guests too. I just have to stand next to people in the street and its terrible…

It only seems to have got this bad over the last year or maybe a little less…

What the hell are they putting in this stuff? Are people over doing it? Using too much?

It’s no wonder that more and more children are growing up struggling with asthma and all kinds of skin allergies and problems…

Its not air pollution outside the home we should be looking at… it’s the toxicity of the home environment…

Just think… the normal average housewife with kids… uses… washing powder, softener, maybe air freshner… all those toxic plug in things they keep pushing on the TV, … tons of cleaning products, bleach, surface cleaners, window cleaners… polish, etc etc. the list goes on and on… the air in some homes must be so full of chemicals its lethal.

Couple that with, double glazing, central heating, insulation… so no fresh air gets in … wow… what are we doing to those children and ourselves… I think the stronger the smell the more toxic it must be… why do women think that washing has to smell strongly of the washing powder to be clean…

I read an article the other week about the recommended dosage labels on powders…

Companies advertise on the box that that size box does ‘X’ amount of washes, on the back or the side they give you the recommended amounts to use for a wash… and it rarely adds up… if you actually use as much as they tell you to… you’ll never get your ‘X’ amount of washes…

I have a friend who uses the strong washing powders, but puts two tablespoons in per wash load… yep, that all… and she gets a perfectly good clean wash…

Are they conning housewives… does anyone really care… or is it just my nose that suffers….