Washing clothes in the bush..

[alkier]

'ello folks,

im trying to piece together the last little bits of my kit and one thing im struggling to find is a decent, enviro-hamless, clothes washing powder/liquid. Something that wouldnt decimate fish and other organisms when it ran into a river.

could one of you more organised chaps please drop a couple of brand names my way please?

Thanks a bunch,
Alk.

 

[Chambers]

Not sure if anything here would be any good to you

http://www.ecotopia.co.uk/product/20/laundry.htm

 

[maddave]

The Ecover range is great

http://www.ecover.com/gb/en/Products/Laundry/

 

[nigeltm]

The lifesystems liquid soap should do. It's biodegradable and works on clothes, food and you.

 

[yerbache]

I've posted this on another thread recently....but I can't speak highly enough of Grandpa's Wonder pine tar soap...

http://www.raymears.com/Bushcraft_Product/758-Grandpas-Wonder-Pine-Tar-Soap-3-25oz-Pack-of-4/

Why carry two products into the bush when one does everything??

I'd also recommend this stuff.,

http://www.drbronner.com/DBMS/ALM.htm

Available in loads of scents (or scentless) from good health-food shops in the UK...and it seems to last forever....I'm still using a bottle I bought 3 years ago!

 

[Shewie]

The lifesystems liquid soap should do. It's biodegradable and works on clothes, food and you.

+1 for the Lifesystems stuff

A little goes a long way too, I used it daily on a week long canoe trip last year and hardly used any of the large bottle. I've since decanted some into a little hotel shampoo bottle which will last a couple of weeks probably.

I don't tend to bother if it's just a weekend trip, unless it's really hot and I start to honk

 

[big_swede]

Ordinary soap. Shave of a few bits, put with luke warm water in a plastic bag. I prefer the ones from Dove, because they produce a nice lather if I need to shave. Multitasking items are good in my book.

 

[robin wood]

Folks in western 21st century society wash clothes far far more often than is needed or is good for the environment.
I remember reading a Dervla Murphy travel novel about a trip with her 10 yr old daughter, can't remember if it was the Afghanistan one or ten feet in the Andes, anyway she said the locals put their winter clothes on in October and took them off in spring.
Washing clothes uses 10 times more energy than the whole manufacture chain put together. OK you might like to wash your socks and undies but jeans can happily go months between washes. Just washing in stream water with no detergent gets stuff clean (may not remove stains but it is clean) and doesn't leave you smelling of perfume. Same at home, try putting your washing through at 30 degrees with no detergent and see if you can tell the difference. If you want to try this it may be advisable to stop buying white, I did years ago.

 

[yerbache]

Ordinary soap. Shave of a few bits, put with luke warm water in a plastic bag. I prefer the ones from Dove, because they produce a nice lather if I need to shave. Multitasking items are good in my book.

I still go back to the Grandpa's Wonder pine-tar

 

[treadlightly]

Folks in western 21st century society wash clothes far far more often than is needed or is good for the environment.
I remember reading a Dervla Murphy travel novel about a trip with her 10 yr old daughter, can't remember if it was the Afghanistan one or ten feet in the Andes, anyway she said the locals put their winter clothes on in October and took them off in spring.
Washing clothes uses 10 times more energy than the whole manufacture chain put together. OK you might like to wash your socks and undies but jeans can happily go months between washes. Just washing in stream water with no detergent gets stuff clean (may not remove stains but it is clean) and doesn't leave you smelling of perfume. Same at home, try putting your washing through at 30 degrees with no detergent and see if you can tell the difference. If you want to try this it may be advisable to stop buying white, I did years ago.

Agreed................

 

[John Fenna]

Folks in western 21st century society wash clothes far far more often than is needed or is good for the environment.
I remember reading a Dervla Murphy travel novel about a trip with her 10 yr old daughter, can't remember if it was the Afghanistan one or ten feet in the Andes, anyway she said the locals put their winter clothes on in October and took them off in spring.
Washing clothes uses 10 times more energy than the whole manufacture chain put together. OK you might like to wash your socks and undies but jeans can happily go months between washes. Just washing in stream water with no detergent gets stuff clean (may not remove stains but it is clean) and doesn't leave you smelling of perfume. Same at home, try putting your washing through at 30 degrees with no detergent and see if you can tell the difference. If you want to try this it may be advisable to stop buying white, I did years ago.

Very true - but while out on exped in tropical climes I did wash my kit a couple of times to avoid unplesant stench - as well as lots of sweat there was a deal of mud, blood and beer to remove from other bits of clothing.
Lifesystems worked well...

 

[sandbender]

Folks in western 21st century society wash clothes far far more often than is needed or is good for the environment.
I remember reading a Dervla Murphy travel novel about a trip with her 10 yr old daughter, can't remember if it was the Afghanistan one or ten feet in the Andes, anyway she said the locals put their winter clothes on in October and took them off in spring.
Washing clothes uses 10 times more energy than the whole manufacture chain put together. OK you might like to wash your socks and undies but jeans can happily go months between washes. Just washing in stream water with no detergent gets stuff clean (may not remove stains but it is clean) and doesn't leave you smelling of perfume. Same at home, try putting your washing through at 30 degrees with no detergent and see if you can tell the difference. If you want to try this it may be advisable to stop buying white, I did years ago.

Very true, although modern fabrics have more of a tendancy to get a bit smelly I find. Stick to wool, linen etcetera and you will be fine.

 

[Toddy]

Underclothing gets washed frequently, and whatever gets used to wash self and hair will do fine. Basically it's only the water that loosens dirt and grime, the soap/detergent/whatever simply allows the water molecules to penetrate the fabric, and the dirt.
That means that the natural saponins work just as well.
Soapwort is excellent but boiled nettles, strained and frothy, work too (don't use on the whites I now have a set of OD underpinnings ) chestnut leaves are very good but not so good for any watercourse.........and you shouldn't be putting soap into a watercourse anyway; like going for a piddle, keep well back.
Outer clothing usually just gets washed when I get home, unless I've been working with something disgusting. It's not the first dig that my clothes were able to stand up by themselves

My very elderly aunt was talking of this topic just last week; how clean everyone looks nowadays, and nobody smells. Most folks tried to be clean and tidy, but social poverty was a major factor in the way people dealt with their clothing.
In the past folks brushed outerclothes but no one washed them the way we do now. We are a material rich culture.

The water waste is horrendous really, but almost every family in the land runs the washing machine day in, day out, & I'm not throwing stones at anybody, mine's on just now.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[rik_uk3]

How long are you going for, weeks? months? For a weekend just change into spare pants or socks. You can wash your body and clothes with a bar of soap easy enough or subject to you having no allergies you can use Fairy Liquid and a few suds off a bar of Pears soap or smidgen of Fairy Liquid won't kill the grass.

 

[EdS]

people wash when playing in the woods :yikes:

Though you where just supose to sit in front of damp smoldering fire until you smell like a kipper

 

[yerbache]

Very true, although modern fabrics have more of a tendancy to get a bit smelly I find. Stick to wool, linen etcetera and you will be fine.

I have a wool jumper I bought in a charity shop about 15 years ago and I have never washed it....

I think the same will go for my Bison Bushcraft Guide shirts....

 

[mrcharly]

Fairy liquid (in fact, almost any washing up liquid) is *really* bad for streams.

Pure soap flakes - cheap and go a long way - or ecover.

The soap flakes can be used for personal hygiene as well as clothes. You need very very few flakes - best to dissolve them in a bit of water, then add the resulting solution to your washbucket.

 

[EdS]

but soap and soap flakes are very bad for water course - they have a very high BOD & COD, have a high pH and signifianct traces of oil/grease. Readily biodegradable non ionic surfacants are much better.

 

[yerbache]

Fairy liquid (in fact, almost any washing up liquid) is *really* bad for streams.

Well pointed out. Most detergents work by lowering the surface tension of the water and depleting the oxygen - hence the reason that most of them have a very bad effect on water-courses.

 

[RonW]

A very interesting thread!
Loads of info I didn't know of.