I don’t like getting in the way of choices but I kinda need the synthetic fragranced laundry products, especially the waxy fabric softeners, made illegal. Laundry vents outside makes it more than a personal choice.

But instead of just whining about it, I’m going to put together some resources / product that are excellent and/or better. And the reality of this is that Laundry detergents are where I have the least info right now apparently. Some of my “go-to” have gone out of business and others are made outside of the United States and aren’t being imported anymore.

So I will be doing some more research on this topic before the end of the year because I want more people to move away from heavily fragranced laundry. IF you need to perfume things, dare I say it, I would rather you use perfume because at least it’s not contaminating the entire neighborhood as much or as often.

Fabric Softner:

You mostly don’t need it. Well IF you have a lot of polyester you might have a lot more static without it BUT this can be replaced with:

Laundry Detergent

  • Ecover was my previous go-to so if you can find that (and the real version, what I purchased on Amazon last was clearly counterfeit and I’m not sure that’s changed.)

Look for “Free and Clear” in whatever you currently use.

Tide Free & Gentle is probably the easiest to find.

Sometimes there are still additives but they are usually not nearly as bad as other products.

If you need a scent, Citrus is more likely to be both more natural & safer for more people with allergies or who are immunocompromised.

Worst offenders section:

Because I don’t have enough options for you, I really want to list out some of the THE worst offenders in laundry fragrance / products both from my own experience as well as from the complaints I’ve seen online from people who are in pain from or react badly to laundry detergents:

  1. Most dryer sheets because they have a waxy substance that also makes it stick to things. Snuggle seems to be one of the worst of these. Choose a liquid softener or dryer balls.
  2. Scent beads – these are engineered to stay on clothes longer.
  3. Costco fragranced detergents – when our town got a Costco, my problems actually increased. I can smell the 30 mile radius around these stores. I do NOT hate the store itself in any other respect but until they fix their detergent issues, I can’t even shop there. Costco is an actual muscle pain for me it’s that bad, like a neurological disruptor.
  4. Gain (this is a big offender across a number of immunocompromised people and those with even allergies)
  5. Downy
  6. Febreeze
  7. Any fragranced bleach – the amount of engineering that has to go into adding fragrance to bleach just makes all of it 5x worse.

The quick list of other things around the house:

I have entire spreadsheets full of resources but here are few other things you might want to change out.

If you only change out one thing though, please let it be your laundry products.