Alternatives to laundry detergents

I saw the ad, too. Before long they will come up with something else "new and improved", like a powder you add to the machine or perhaps a bar of some type of soap that you dissolve in the water. ;)

Saw an ad the other day for an "portable ultrasonic cleaning machine" for both clothes and dishes. The water was flying around so hard in it that I could visualize the dishes turning into shards of glass and ceramic. They said how much work you would save by not going to the laundromat and I kept thinking, who is going to wring out all those clothes and then hang them out in the snow to dry. Not to mention dirty underwear and forks in the same container. Not happening here.

Washing machine to the dryer..... c'mon........  use soap if you want to.........  Nobody has an outdoor clothes line these days.... do They?  Do You?

Yes, we have a line for outdoor laundry drying. When I changed bedding yesterday, the fresh sheets that came off the shelf had been dried outside, probably in November. I noticed they still had that “dried outside” scent.

Hmmmm OK...... I guess there are still some clothes lines around. Thanks for your replies.

As a youth I remember mother washing clothes with the ol wringer washing machine.  Swish, clonk, swish clonk, Then they got hung out on the line. No dryer. Cold wet weather she had these little fold up wooden clothes racks that she could set up and dry the clothes indoors.  We lived in a 2 room shack.  No bathroom.  The outhouse was over there 60 feet across the ditch by the chicken coop.  The washer sat out on the porch until wash day when it would get wheeled in to the kitchen.  Summer time she might wash out on the porch rather than move it in the kitchen.   Want a bath ?  You got down the ol tin tub and heated some water on the electric range, pour in the tub and hop in and scrub a dub dub .

I assume you mean "laundry/delicates bag"?

I have a clothesline, but only use it in nonwinter weather when the neighbor doesn't close the lid to her garbage cans. Ever since she's moved in decades ago, those lids are open, cans weren't cleaned, and were a fly attraction. Yuck.

When I was growing up and living at home, laundry was a bonding experience. We "helped" Mom with the wringer machine in the basement, carried the clothes up and had some female bonding times hanging and then picking the laundry. And sometimes we used the mangle to iron the sheets and pillow cases. When I think of that now, I realize that I haven't ironed anything since I quit working and retired.

"also socks and pillowcase like to hide in corners of fitted sheets"

You wash sheets, then you wash socks and other whites. Don't wash em all together. Arguah!