Hi Lana, I have received my soaps from you. I love the Frankensence and Myrrh!! As a matter of fact, You'll be getting a order form me anytime in the mail! Do you make shampoos?? I do use your soaps on my hair too, and my hair feels wonderful. But I was wondering if you have the liquid kind too. Let me know Barb

To those of you who have been using these "home made" detergents, are you experiencing any odor, mold or mildew issues? The reason I ask is because castile soap builds up into a gooopy, gel-like gunk if not properly rinsed. This could potentially cause problems in washers. Every home-made product I've tried - from detergent to fabric softener - has proven unsatisfactory. Either the products don't clean well, they risk building up in my machine or on my clothes or they just don't work. Price is not the only consideration, which is what appears to be driving this homemade laundry movement.

Froth is an indication that one is using enough soap to properly clean as well as keep soils/hard water minerals and muck suspended. This is why most every soap product from laundry to bath advertises or advertised "mounds of rich creamy suds". Pure soaps by design will create suds, quite allot of them, while detergents can be either low or high sudsing. Anyone brought up to do laundry with soap will tell you that if one does not see suds, then more soap was needed. When Ivory Snow was powdered soap, directions on the box recommended a 1 to 2 inch layer of creamy suds throug out the wash cycle as an indication one had added enough product. The problem with using soap in front loaders is even one inches of suds can cause problems, and you have very little control over how much soap to use. If you add too little in the drawer, you may not have a way to add more during the wash cycle. Add too much, then you have other problems. There is also the fact that even a one inch layer of froth may trigger a washing machine's internal "over sudsing" system to abort the wash cycle. The tumbling action of front loaders will cause even more froth to form, which not only will decrease cleaning results, but can damage the washing machine as well. Simply put soap softens water (by binding hard water minerals), and also cleans like all "detergents". Differnece is detergents are "built" with additives to soften water, while soap will do this by itself, but one must use much of the product depending upon water conditions. It is the binding of hard water minerals that causes soap crud which forms on everything washed in pure soap. Besides creating froth, which is bad for front loading washing machines; the first several rinses after laundering with soap must be either hot or at least warm water temperature to prevent soap and the muck it has released from becoming trapped in textiles when coming in contact with cold water. Soap is very difficult to rinse from laundry (just because the froth is gone, does not mean all soap has been rinsed from garments), indeed the fats and oils used to make soap will leave a residue on textiles that can build up over time, resulting in dingy, tattle-tale grey fabrics that can turn rancid smelling. Zote, is still widely used in Mexico and other parts of South America as bar laundry soaps have been for ages; to do laundry by hand in either a river bank, wash tub/sink or semi or totally automatic top loading washing machine. Personally wouldn't use soap in any of today's low water front loaders, with the exception of soap based products such as Persil's "Perwol". Do have bars of vintage Fel's soap, but use it more as a pre-treat than to do actual wash loads. C.dS

Can anyone recommend a dispenser with a LONG spout? The one we have now (Price Pfister) has an utterly useless 2" spout. I have found a 3 7/8" spout, also 3 1/2", but am wondering if there are any that are longer. The new sink is 10" deep. We weren't going to get a new soap dispenser, but after reading this thread, I thought, "I don't want ugly bottles on my new granite!" I could do a rack mounted on the sink cabinet door, but I think the dispenser is neater :-) It just needs a long spout so it can actually squirt dish soap into the pots, instead of dribbling down the side of the sink. Will definitely get a NeverMT--so glad that I heard of it here!