• 0 Posts
  • 9 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: July 4th, 2024
  • doc@fedia.iotoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•A trillion and one questions about laundry please help?
    1·
    14 days ago

    Surfactants and enzymes are different things that perform different but complementary jobs in your laundry. Think of enzymes as chemical scissors that can only cut very specific things. They’re very much like puzzle pieces, with lipase only cleving triglycerides (dietary fats) and not mineral oils, for example. Mix a variety together and they break down certain stubborn, sticky chemicals into smaller parts. That helps release them from fibers and makes it easier for surfactants to grab them to be washed away. Surfactants are chemicals that cling to soils so they can be suspended in water and rinsed down the drain.

    Wool is hair, so think of it like your shampoo. Shampoos are usually made to be pH neutral because we know high pH makes hair dry and tangle horribly. However, most everything in the wash has no problem with high pH, and surfactants work better with high pH, thus we generally do laundry at high pH’s around 10 or so. Higher if you add bleach (please don’t), oxygen bleach (“oxy” aka hydrogen peroxide), or even ammonia.

    Since you’re in Canada look for Eucalan or Miele WoolCare.

  • doc@fedia.iotoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•A trillion and one questions about laundry please help?
    2·
    14 days ago

    Where you at? Continent is close enough.

    Wool clothing really does need a special detergent. Surficants are one part, of course, but the pH shouldn’t get too high, and a lot of detergents tend to have high pH since that helps clean. The high pH is not good for the wool and will make the scales on the hairs open and become brittle, which is the opposite of what you want.

    You also want to avoid the enzyme protase/substilin. They both are effective against proteins, which is great for a lot of soils, but bad for hair, which is made out of protein. Other enzymes like lipase, cellulase, amylase, and mannanase are all perfectly fine and won’t damage the fibers.

    It’s just next to impossible to find a detergent with enzymes but without protase. There are a couple manufacturers in Europe, but none in the US. There is one US company reselling an EU detergent (The Steamery) but it’s pricy and is scented.