Soap spray will kill mites (and their predators as well) but probably won't kill the eggs. I would suggest following up with repeated hard sprays of water under the leaves every couple of days for a week. Dr. Bronner's should be fine if you use the right amount. I see on the web recommendations ranging from 1 TB to 5 TB/gallon, and one of those extremes must be wrong. Your mix is on the high end. Please report if burning of the foliage appears after a few days.

Dishwasher liquid won't work, it's not soap. for it to really work you need real soap (it can't be called soap unless it is based on fatty acid salts - I learned that legal bit of info when I was making soap), the fatty acid salts are supposed break down the bugs cells. I like neem oil, but I hate the oily residue it leaves, don't have that issue with insecticidal soap. But then, I have tried everything to control aphids in the greenhouse, I have yet to find anything that kills them for good, (or for that matter, even puts a dent in their propagation) except tossing them out in sub freezing weather. Pam

AI, thank you for the advice. A couple of times I used insecticide from Bayer it was too strong for my chili plants. Since then I started to use many different homemade recipes, such as dishwasher liquid, Olive oil with dishwasher liquid and Castile liquid soap. Neem oil with dish washer liquid got good result. However still I have been trying to find out the best and easiest way to control aphids. The Neem oil I use is cold-pressed (the sellers claimed), I have suspicion of the quality of the Neem oil I used, even the same source Neem oil the quality are different. The first bottle I used had very strong garlic like smell and very effective. The second batch bottles I bought were not having much strong smell and less effective. Some of our members recommended to use Castile soap, thatâÂÂs I tried. The source of pure Castile soap I have is only eBay and Amazon, thatâÂÂs also I am not sure they are pure Castile soap. To get pure Castile soap I made it :) Making Castile soap is also easy, I have all the ingredients and tools at home so just I tried it. The plants I sprayed my homemade Castile soap are not yet get any negative effects. I never knew to use of rubbing alcohol for plants, I am very interested about it. I will try it, we have different types of rubbing alcohol the one I found in the supermarkets are 93% alcohol (ethanol) and another one is also 93% alcohol (denatured). I will try the first one. Bruce, I also cooked the lye with oil to neutralize the lye. Some people also made soap without cooking but it'd takes more time to neutralize the lye, source Internet :). To check the neutralization of lye phenolphthalein also use but I did not use it. Mecdave, many people recommended to use pure soap for aphids, just I mentioned before, thatâÂÂs one of the reasons I made Castile soap too. I also tried forceful water spray but it ruined the tender foliage and flowers. I am very interested AlâÂÂs tips of using rubbing alcohol. It could be one of the best, cheapest and easiest way to control aphids. Thank you everyone for the posts and tips. Veto

The bottom line, if you want to use Castile soap in laundry, you should also treat the hard water issue by adding a water softener product to the wash AND the rinse, AND use the hottest water possible for the fabric type for it to clean efficiently. It's not a cold water product. If your water temperature is below 60°F, neither soap or detergent performs well. If you don't treat the rinse water with a water softener product, an alternative is to add vinegar (an acid) to the rinse water to help minimize mineral staining. It is also the reason people used rain water (which is soft water) to rinse their hair and often used rain water for the rinse water for their laundry before detergents were developed. There is a lot of science about soap/detergent and hard water. If you are interested in more details, you might want to do some more research on the subject, but be warned, it's pretty unexciting reading. ;-) You can also add water softener to the water in a sink full of water you will use on your body with "soap" to change how it reacts in the water and feels on your skin. There is some confusion about detergent and soap. Even a debate as to whether soaps are synthetic or natural products. Soaps (sodium oleate) derived from naturally-occurring fats and oils (palm oil, olive oil, etc.) are only a couple of steps away from the original natural products. But to chemists, that step of producing the soap molecule from these oils is still a synthesis step, so they consider soaps synthetic products as well. Detergents evolved from petrochemicals (synthetic chemical cleaning agents) when natural fats and oils were being used to manufacture nitro-glycerine for explosives for the war effort, rather than for soap. The principal difference between a soap and a detergent, after all the science mumbo-jumbo about long hydrocarbon chains, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, or saturated and carbohydrate group, protonated soap molecule, etc., is how it acts in hard water. Soaps tend to "complex" with the metal ions in hard water forming a scum, while detergents do not. The protonated soap molecule doesn't have a "charged head", so it is no longer soluble in water. The soap molecules precipitate out forming a cloudy mixture, which leads to the formation of scum. We've lived in a "detergent" world since WWII, so we are accustomed to the befits of detergents. When we switch to soaps, we fail to follow the protocol that makes them "work". Not sure if that helps answer your questions.... -Grainlady