A Complete Thieves Laundry Detergent Review

Finding a healthy laundry detergent that doesn't mess with your washing machine and actually cleans clothes isn't the easiest task.

When I first started my healthy home journey, I had just finished a 30 day paleo diet challenge that brought my seizures down from an average of 6 each day to 2 each week. I was really excited for finally having some relief after spending nearly a decade of a chronic autoimmune and neurological health crisis. After seeing how much cleaning up my eating lifestyle helped, I started wondering if there was any other changes in our home that we can make to continue helping unburden my body so my healing journey would continue. The results were shocking, and led me to purging our home of ALL our cleaning, personal care, personal hygiene, and cosmetic products. And I sobbed. Easily $200-300 worth of items, many unopened. I filled 2 kitchen trash bags, and endured the anxiety attack of needing to replace everything with a very limited budget, as my income was less than $1,000 each month in veterans disability.

Researching Laundry Soap Recipes

Let's face it… many cleaners can be easily made, like adding citrus peels to diluted vinegar, or creating a soft scrub out of baking soda. But laundry soap… while there are a ton of recipes out there, and I knew a few people who did make their own… my analytical mind went deeper into whether it actually worked and whether or not washing machines could handle the DIY soaps. The short answer…. no…. don't make your own laundry soap.

I do not recommend DIY laundry soaps because it is not the same as detergent. To make detergent, you would need a specialized lab. Soap just doesn’t clean well at all, will gum up your washing machine over time, and will void your washing machine’s warranty.

The only time DIY laundry soap is a good idea is if you’re washing your laundry by hand, scrubbing over a wash board. That being said, I will always recommend DIY laundry soap or soap nuts over toxic options on store shelves and all over internet shops.

My Personal Experience Trying Young Living's Thieves Laundry Detergent

After trying a few different “natural” detergent options, nothing seemed to get our clothes clean enough, especially important with being newly married to a hobby mechanic and living in Virginia. Nothing seemed to work to get sweat and car grease out of his clothes. I was warned that trying Thieves would be the last attempt at using a healthy laundry detergent before he insisted we switch back to Tide.

I was shocked. The first load, and everything came out amazing. The fresh smell of linens, with no overpowering synthetic perfume smell, no musty-mildewy smell, no humid sweaty smell… just fresh cloth. I was so excited. It even managed to remove the grease from my husband's clothes.

After seeing how well it worked, I talked with a few friends who were making their own laundry soap, and encouraged them to give it a try. They were surprised to hear about my research findings with what laundry soap can do to washer machines, and how much the DIY options lacked in cleaning power.

One friend mentioned she tried Thieves Laundry Soap for one load just to humor me, and also really enjoyed the results. She then decided to wash a load of clean laundry she had just washed with her DIY mix, and was astonished at how dirty the water was. The years she had made her own laundry soap wasn't actually cleaning her clothes as well as she had thought. The rest of her laundry soap ended up being used in foaming hand soap dispensers to wash their hands instead of being used for their laundry, which I thought was very clever to not just throw away the remainder of what she had.

My Laundry Routine with Young Living's Thieves Laundry Soap

One trick I've learned to help save money and ensure not too much Thieves Laundry Soap is being used in each load is to dilute it, especially when kids and the spouse is helping with laundry.

While we do have customers who dilute 1/3 Thieves Laundry Soap to 2/3 water, I tend to dilute 50 percent each. This way, they can use just half a cap of laundry soap and not use too much.

I also add 1/2 cup of white vinegar to the rinse cycle, using the fabric softener well of our washer machine's detergent tray. This replaces any use of fabric softener. If clothes are especially smelly (like our dog towels after bathing the dogs), I'll add a little vinegar to a pre-wash cycle.

On occasion, I'll add a few drops of Purification Essential Oil Blend, or lemongrass and lavender essential oils, to the vinegar in the rinse cycle.

** PLEASE NOTE ** Don't be fooled by clever marketing. Not all essential oils are created equally. Make sure you're not wasting your money on fake or altered essential oils (even if they're labeled as “pure essential oil”). Don't miss our explosive report outlining the dirty little secrets of the essential oil industry to ensure you're not wasting your money on brands of oils that legally mislead you through deceitful marketing practices.

Then either line dry outside, or dry in the dryer with a set of wool dryer balls.