What Is the Best Antibacterial Laundry Detergent?

The word detergent exhausts us even if we do not have to do laundry. It may seem more evil if you are a person with sensitive skin who has to suffer skin damage due to detergents. Nevertheless, we cannot avoid it at any cost. Cleaning is an essential part of our life, and in order to keep our clothes clean, we need to wash them with detergent.

The antibacterial detergent will be your best friend if there is a risk of bacteria and viruses in your house. It can kill 99.99% of germs from the clothes, making them hygienic and dirt-free. If you want to ensure hygienic clothes, it’s time you should get the best antibacterial laundry detergent for your household.

What is the best antibacterial laundry detergent, and why is it different from other types of detergent? You will get to know this and much more about antibacterial detergent in this article. Keep reading to the end to get more insight into it.

What is an Antibacterial Laundry Detergent?

Ordinary detergents are made to clean clothes by removing the stains and giving them a fresh smell. However, these detergents may or may not remove germs. This depends upon the way you wash your clothes. If you keep the water temperature high while doing laundry, ordinary detergent may increase efficiency and kick away all the pathogens.

But with the use of antibacterial laundry detergent, you do not have to put extra effort into adding hot water. Even in water with normal temperature, antibacterial detergent can kill all the germs, rendering the clothes hygienic and germ-free.

Bacteria and other such infectious microorganisms can survive washing if you do laundry at temperatures below 60 degrees Celsius. Therefore, while using ordinary detergent, you have either to keep the water temperature high or use some other agent like bleach to destroy these germs.

If you do not want to go for any of these methods, the simplest solution is to buy an antibacterial detergent. This will save you a lot of hassle, and at the same time, you will get rid of so many disorders caused by these infectious microorganisms.

Why do I need it?

A lot of germs, bacteria, and viruses are housed in our clothes. Dirty clothes carry more germs, but that does not mean apparently clean clothes are free of such disease-causing pathogens.

The risk of such microorganisms transferring to our body is quite low, but it is not zero. Therefore, we need to take special care of clothes and keep them hygienic. Here is some situation when you should use an antibacterial laundry detergent.

If you are an employee in a hospital, you should get your clothes washed with antibacterial detergent. This is because you may encounter a number of people every day, each of them carrying different pathogens, which may transfer to your clothes. In addition to washing your hands with antibacterial soap, you should also wash your clothes with antibacterial detergent to eliminate all those pathogens.
If a patient at home is diagnosed with a viral or bacterial infection, you need to take extra care of all the things at home. One of the most important tasks is to wash the patient’s clothes separately with antibacterial detergent. This will ensure that pathogens are not transferred to another person’s clothes, thus keeping everyone protected.
Besides these two obvious reasons, you also need antibacterial detergent if a person with a weak immune system is in the house. Such individuals should try to stay away from all the sources of pathogens. The place one could get an infection from his clothes. This is why washing clothes with antibacterial detergent is important to keep the risk of transferring pathogens at a minimum.

Preparation of Antibacterial Laundry Detergent at Home

Antibacterial laundry detergent is all about adding ingredients to the detergent that can fight infectious pathogens. Normally, you can add those ingredients separately while doing laundry. However, if you want to escape from the hassle, you can prepare an antibacterial detergent for long-term use.

Here are the ingredients that you will need:

Borax
Washing soda
A bar of soap
Tea tree oil

Step–by–step Process

Begin with taking a bar of your favorite antibacterial soap. You can also use an ordinary soap since we will add antibacterial ingredients later. You can prepare soap at home as well. Basically, you will need to convert this soap bar into powdered form. You can do so by putting it in a food processor or a blender. All we want is the fine powder of this soap.
In that powder of soap, you need to add a cup of borax. It is effective in killing germs, majorly known for its anti-fungal properties. It is being used in cosmetics and detergents.
In the above mixture, add about a cup of washing soda, which is also known as sodium carbonate. It is added to the detergent for softening the clothes. Washing soda is great at fighting all types of stains and prevents the binding of hard water with detergent.
In the end, we need a few drops of natural disinfectant, that is, tea tree oil. You can also use any essential oil of your choice instead of tea tree oil. In addition to having disinfecting properties, tea tree oil is also beneficial for several health purposes. About eight drops of tea tree oil will do the job.
Simply mix all these ingredients very well and store the detergent in an airtight container to prevent moisture.

How to Use it?

Antibacterial detergent can be used in the way you use any other form of detergent. If you have prepared the detergent by the procedure mentioned above, you can use the following measuring:

One tablespoon for a lighter load
Two tablespoons for medium to heavy load
Three tablespoons for heavily soiled load

Laundry detergents are always added to a dispenser. Modern-day laundry machines almost always contain separate compartments for all the laundry products. On the top front of a front-load washing machine, you will see a drawer. When the drawer is opened, you will see various compartments, each built for a specific product. Bleach, fabric softener, and laundry detergent; thus, everything has a separate compartment.

When you need to put the laundry detergent, simply open the drawer and add it to the laundry detergent compartment. Make sure you do not exceed the recommended amount. The washing machines are built in such a way that detergent goes in the drum when it is needed.

However, in the case of a top-load washing machine, there is not a separate compartment for the detergent. We have to add it directly into the drum. But there are some precautions that you need to follow. Always add the detergent to the drum before adding the clothes. This will help the detergent dissolve in water. If you add the detergent on the top of clothes, detergent may form stains on clothes that are difficult to remove.

The Best Type of Antibacterial Laundry Detergent

There are endless options of detergents in the market, with each of them grabbing your attention in a unique way. With so many options, how would one know which is the right choice for oneself? Every detergent is formulated differently. There are a few basic ingredients that are the same, but the rest are different, varying from company to company.

To get the best antibacterial detergent for your laundry, here are a few features that you must focus on.

Hypoallergenic

Laundry detergents that do not contain allergens like enzymes and fragrances are termed hypoallergenic. If you or somebody at home has skin issues, it is necessary for you to see if the detergent is hypoallergenic or not.

Not having enzymes and certain other ingredients does not mean the detergent cannot be effective. They can still clean clothes and keep away bacteria.

High Efficiency

Modern-day washing machines use detergents formulated in such a way that they use less water and, in turn, produce less suds. These detergents are high-efficiency detergent that works great on high-efficiency washers people use these days.

With it, you can save a lot of water and energy. Also, the detergent keeps the clothes clean and bright, almost like a traditional detergent. So why not save our planet by saving energy and water?

Environmentally Friendly

Certainly, laundry detergents are formulated with synthetic chemicals that can be really harmful to our lives. Not only this, they affect our environment as well. If you are one of those who prefer more green products, you should look for environmentally friendly laundry detergent.

These detergents are prepared with chemicals that are more organic. However, a drawback about them is they are not much stronger and can be quite expensive than ordinary detergents formulated with synthetic chemicals.

Pros and Cons

One great thing about antibacterial laundry detergent is that anybody with sensitive skin can use it freely without any serious issues. Antibacterial detergents are available in all the three most common forms – liquid, powder, and pods. Here are some advantages and disadvantages of using antibacterial laundry detergent.

Pros

Antibacterial detergent can deal with stains better than any other type of detergent.
All the germs, pathogens, and bacteria easily get away from your clothes, leaving them all free of stains and bacteria.
These detergents are made with a powerful formula that has the capacity to deal with almost every sort of stain.
Antibacterial detergents do not harm any kind of fabric. You can wash all colored and white clothes in it without any fear.
Some are so good at removing bad, sweaty smells, leaving behind a fresh odor that lingers over everything you put the cloth on.

Cons

Although antibacterial detergents do not cause harm even to sensitive skin, some strong formulas may damage your skin.
There are a few chemicals in the antibacterial detergents that make our body’s bacteria resistant to antibiotics.
Some leave a very strong smell behind that may be inconvenient for many people.

Is Antibacterial Detergent Harmful to Health?

Triclosan is a chemical that is added to antibacterial detergent to give its characteristic properties. However, this chemical has many health-related concerns in human bodies. This chemical is present in almost every product that is labeled as “antibacterial”.

One study on animals has concluded that triclosan alters the effect of some hormones in our bodies. Other than that, it also makes bacteria in our body resistant to antibiotics. As a result, medical antibiotics do not affect them.

Triclosan is found in human plasma and breast milk. Though the concentration of triclosan was negligibly low, yet some studies have shown that it can destroy the endocrine system.

Triclocarban is another antibacterial agent that is frequently used in different products. This chemical goes into the water bodies. Ultimately, this chemical ends up in the fertilizers, which are used for crops.

These effects of triclosan show that every glitter is not always gold. No doubt we get hygienic clothes by using antibacterial detergent, but the amount of long-term damage it causes cannot be denied.

In Conclusion

Antibacterial detergent is great at killing bacteria and other such pathogens. An antibacterial detergent can kill the bacteria that are not killed below 60 degrees Celsius. This detergent should be at your house if there is a patient at home or someone from your home who works at a health center.

Antibacterial detergents are a great choice if you find the best formulation from the market. They are mostly hypoallergenic, which is a great trait for people with sensitive skin. Other than that, antibacterial detergents have stronger cleaning power as compared to typical laundry detergents.

You can easily get antibacterial detergent in any form you want. Many popular brands of detergents offer antibacterial detergents in all three forms – liquid, powder, and pods. You can also get these detergents in their eco-friendly form. You just need to do a bit of research.

What are you waiting for then? Go grab yours now.