Major Laundry Detergent Buildup

I am so so sorry that this has happened to you! Is there any way you could take them to a laundry mat and rinse them instead of just washing them?

One of the best things to take out soap or shampoo residues is to use white vinegar. I would rinse the clothes in as strong of a vinegar solution, like maybe straight if you can. This should help to break down the soap. You might also want to contact like Proctor and Gamble and ask them because they make a lot of differen types of soaps.

Good luck! I feel so much for you!

I second Marla S. I use white vinegar when rinsing soap out of cloth diapers (though I do not use very much). I also think you should take it all to a laundrette/laundromat and just "rinse" each load until you can tell the wash is clear water. If you do, put the vinegar in the soap dispenser this time since you have so much buildup to start with. Sorry. :-( Hopefully this will be a story you and your husband will be able to laugh at in the years to come! Good luck. :-)

I think the front loading machines are supposed to be economical because they use so much less water. But that means they need a lot less detergent so the proportion stays the same. The detergent bottle directions have nothing to do with the size of the machine. Sounds like you've had the added problem of a language barrier - I have a friend who studied Japanese and I know how hard she worked to learn an entirely different set of characters. Can you talk to someone who speaks English at the place where you bought the machine? that might save time over trying to decipher a manual, since I think manuals aren't written so clearly anyway.

And yes, run a lot of white vinegar through the machine, and wash your clothes without detergent, perhaps in a laundromat as someone else suggested.

I think it's too bad that your husband is so worried about the bills that he has stopped taking showers, and it's turned into an argument about what you do all day on the iPad. It sounds like you two need to communicate a lot better - he had no idea you've had a ton of laundry and some skin irritation, and you took 5 days to notice that he wasn't showering. It sounds like this problem with the laundry is only one of the things that went on and on without being addressed. Maybe the two of you should work on better and earlier communication so there isn't so much resentment and so there isn't so much time elapsing before one spouse knows of the other spouse's problems.

Not only are you going to need to use vinegar to get the soap out of your clothes, you are going to need to use vinegar in your machine and run some empty loads to get the excess buildup out of the machine. Or look at the manual and use what the manufacturer suggests to clean the machine. My machine has a clean washer setting and suggests using Affresh to clean the washer.

First, do a major vinegar treatment to your washer. Pour in a few cups, and let the machine cycle. Then do a couple of rinses of your clothing with vinegar added to the water. :)

On the newer washers a simple vingar clean up will NOT do. Vinegar works best on calcium deposits, it does very little to detergent build up.
You likely have some major soap buildup in the hose system. They should make and sell a washing machine cleaner for HE washers. Send your husband to buy it, you put it in the machine like detergent and it cleans all of the inner workings. You may have to do it 2 or three times if your buildup is that bad.
As for the clothes I would wash them on the hottest setting possible without any detergent. As you wash them you should see sudsing, They need to be washed on hot and rinsed until no more suds come up. You will go through a lot of water... handwashing and rinsing them in the bathtub may help you save a bit and you can get the water hotter by adding almost boiling water to the mix. Adding a drop (really just a drop) of dish detergent also helps (but as others have said to NOT put dish detergent in your HE machine).

Well, what a learning experience....on reading manuals and improving communication...

Good luck!

Vinegar.

Don't put any detergent in. Your clothes are already full of detergent. Just put the vinegar into the fabric softener dispenser.

Set it to run an extra rinse cycle too.

Best of luck!

ETA: DO NOT put Dawn dish detergent into your washer. You can use it in the bathtub and then rinse VERY well to get some of the buildup out. But I wouldn't. Just use the vinegar in your machine. And don't worry...the smell will be gone after you dry the clothes.

I agree with Natalie. And take your husband WITH you on a Saturday morning so that he can help you. It's going to take two people. Plus, he can read the directions at the laundromat.

I think I'd recommend to him that he ask before just assuming that you play on the ipad all day if I were you. And what does the ipad have to do with high water bills? That was pretty crappy of him to say and didn't even make sense...

Good luck with this!
Dawn

I had the same problem. It only takes 2 tablespoons of High Efficiency detergent to clean a full load. If you use standard detergents, you use even less than 2 tablespoons. You may want to run an empty load through once with a 1/4 cup vinegar to cleanse out the machine of previous soapy buildup. My repair man also recommended I run the vinegar load once every 4 months or so to keep the machine working right.

I hope this helps.

Run the washer empty on hot several times, then a hot, empty load with vinegar in it (1 cup to 1 1/2 cups). After that, run a cold empty load and see what color the water is. If it is still cloudy, run some more empty hot loads again. Then try a cold empty load. It should be pretty clear by this point. Most front load washers in the US only require a tablespoon of soap for a full size load.

To rid your clothes of the soap put about 1/2 cup baking soda in the tub, then clothes. NO soap at all, fabric softener is ok, And wash like normal.

Good luck
S.

Dawn dish detergent will remove the build up. I'd treat it as if I was stripping cloth diapers.

I have a normal washer and dryer. Not HE. And I only use a teaspoon of detergent per load. That's all you need!! The soap companies tell you to use a lot so you buy a lot.

In my front load washing machine I use a product called "affresh". They are round tablets that go into an empty washing machine to break down all of the soap residue build up. If you can get them in Japan, I recommend buying 2 packs and doing 2 empty loads of laundry with 3 tablets each. The product works wonders. As for the clothing itself, I would wash them a few times without detergent....after all it sounds like the fabric is holding enough detergent from the past few months that you don't need anymore. :)