I'm a sort of crunchy mom. I like organic and and chemical free stuff I like cloth diapers and homemade baby food and I love to wear my babies. I try to avoid putting my kids in contact with as much *junk* as I can but it isn't always financially doable for me. As a family of five and one income sometimes we just can't have *the best*. 

 Throughout our cloth diapering years I used detergents or rather soaps that were safe for cloth diapers, it had always been a struggle finding just the right way to wash since we have hard well water and a HE machine. I found Charlies soap worked well for us (with Borax) but I never really used it on our clothes, yes this is a big no-no when it comes to charlies..but I just felt that it was too expensive to use on all our clothing.... Here I am two years past cloth diapering ordering charlies soap again. Why you ask? because my washer stinks, it smells and my clothing is smelly too.

 I do a monthly tub clean cycle with bleach I wash at least once a week a HOT/COLD cycle, always wipe the door and gasket down and leave the door open when not in use...I spend more time caring for my washer than I do actually using it (or so it feels). I'm sick of it! Doing research I found that traditional detergents like Tide (which is what I primarily use) along with fabric softeners (Which I often use but do cut with vinegar) leave a build up in the washer drum and this leads to bacteria and or fungal build up, which can transfer to your clothing! GROSS

I did several BLEACH tub clean cycles and then two cycles with my charlies soap (and a few rags) and the smell is gone and so is a bunch of gunk that I could see. I will say the bleach alone did not remove the gunk it was only after the cycles with Charlies that my gunk was gone!... Going forward I'm going to be using charlies soap with the wash booster. Hopefully this curbs any washer smell and will get my clothing smelling good again! I'll keep you updated!

http://charliesoap.com/