I kind of nerded out in my reply, and thought I might as well share it here, too, in case others found it interesting
I would test the PH before ingesting anything like that. A science experiment I did with my kids was to make a PH indicator with red cabbage (the results were the same when we used my husband's expensive PH test kit for his aquarium water)
We tested a bunch of things. I really should have organized them the opposite direction, and the lighting wasn't the best to show the colors, but, it's pretty evident to see what is far more alkaline than other things
The PH of the laundry detergent was at least 13. Scary! Even if those are non-toxic chemicals, I would not ingest anything with that high of a PH. I also would not ingest anything with a PH of 11 (like the oxygen bleach). The PH of bleach is 12. It's not safe to be in prolonged skin contact with things with a PH of more than 9, so I wouldn't eat anything with a PH higher than that.
Now, of course, when you're doing laundry, you're highly diluting the suds. Just like if you boil down vinegar, you'll get a dangerous acid--but if you dilute it back again, it's PH is lower--if you dilute the washing solution, then you have a lower PH. When I tested the PH of my laundry detergent, I literally added my PH indicator to the dry detergent, rather than adding it to some water taken from a full load of laundry.
As with most natural cleaners, the toxicity can manifest in two ways:
(1) the actual chemicals being toxic
(2) the concentration of the chemicals being too high
Like Raven talks about in her book, Clean with Cleaners you Can Eat, you can avoid a lot of problems by cleaning right away and using water. Most of the time, nothing else is needed.
Sometimes you need more cleaning power.... You can get that in multiple ways:
(1) A higher PH-- alkaline things break down organic matter better, like fat and food grime and stuff like that. Baking soda, soap, washing soda, ammonia, bleach are all alkaline, and get some of their cleaning power from that.
(2) A lower PH -- acidic dissolve mineral deposits better. Think hard water build up, rust, calcium deposits. The stuff you want off of your shower walls. Vinegar, citric acid, lemons, orange, acetic acid are all acids.
(3) Mechanical removal-- Good ol' elbow grease, scrubbing things hard, using something abrasive like salt or Epsom salt, or those norwex cloths people like to talk about.
(4) Surfactants -- Most chemicals used to clean are surfactants. A surfactant literally means it breaks the surface tension, allowing oil and water to mix. There are natural surfactants, like soap and the sapponis from plants like soap wart or soap nuts. A fun experiment is to sprinkle pepper on top of water. Then try adding random ingredients to it. If the ingredient makes the pepper *WOOSH* toward away from your chemical and then fall down through the water, you found a surfactant. Some random spices have it. It's a fun experiment for all you homeschooling people!). Surfactants also break down the lipid barrier around germs, helping to kill more of those buggies.
(5) Solvents -- These help remove gasoline by-products from stuff. There are a few natural solvents, like rubbing alcohol, vodka, and limonene from citric fruits peals. There's also a lot of horrible ones you'd never want to ingest!
(6) More junk I'm not thinking of, like stuff that whitens stuff (oxygen bleach and bleach). And more stuff I don't know about.
Now, you'll notice some things fit in lots of those categories. Soap is alkaline and also a surfactant. That's why it cleans so well. If you want a better cleaning soap, maybe you want a soap that not "super fatted" for cleaning your stains, or maybe you want to add some baking soda to make it more alkaline, or maybe you just want to get a scrubbier cleaning thing, like a rough towel rather than a smooth cloth. Lemons work as great cleaners because they are (1) acidic, and (2) have lemonene. People like to scrub with lemon and salt, because the salt acts as an abrasive, and the salt is antimicrobial.
This was a really long answer! I went and looked at Molly's Suds. Here's the ingredients from the website (my notes are in parentheses):
Sodium Carbonate (washing soda This has a PH of 11. It's has a A+ rating for safety from the environmental working group, but it's still a crazy high PH. Don't eat this. It is not, however, as high of a PH as my own laundry soap was![/b])
Sodium Bicarbonate (baking soda. This has a PH of 8. Safe to eat...but lots of it would make you poop. Could be handy if you're constipated...)
Magnesium Sulfate (Heptahydrate) (this appears to be epsom salt neutral PH. This appears to be added for scrubbing action? I could not find any sources saying it acted as a surfactant. Maybe it has other cleaning powers I don't know about?)
Unrefined Sea Salt (salt this appears to be added for scrubbing powers)
None of those things are surfactants, and while alkaline things do a good job at removing grime, some sort of surfactant might help. I've hear people complain about Molly's Suds not really cleaning their clothes (especially diapers), and that might be because there's no surfactant to help lift the fat off. BUT hot water can do that. Hot water animates fats...which explains why hot water is such a great cleaner, and why a lot of people wash with hot water.
When I used to make my own diaper laundry detergent, I used baking soda, washing soda, and oxygen bleach. It was not enough to clean my kids diapers (in the end, I got the Country Save detergent and washed in hot for 45 minutes, followed by a hot rinse and then a cold rinse. This was enough hot water and alkalinity to get out all the poop and pee, and enough rinsing to get out all the detergent residue).
While all the things in Molly's Suds are non-toxic, I would not eat them straight out, especially without testing the total PH of whatever solution you are consuming.
A number of years ago I worked for a company that was using an organic product to wash their floors that was allegedly safe to eat. As part of the demo, the salesperson would eat a pack. He ended up in the hospital with dysentery. No, he was not poisoned per se. The cleaner killed off all the bacteria in his stomach and intestines.
Therefore, even if a product contains nothing harmful, I would limit its use to how it was intended to be used.
….give me coffee to do the things I can and bourbon to accept the things I can’t.
From a pediatric ER nurse, actual Tide pods warrant a visit to the ER not so much because of the toxicity but because of the possibility of blocking airway. The little non-toxic silica pads in vitamin bottles and such are marked do not eat for same reason. So please don't eat Tide pods. 😂
Thank you for answering a question that my kids have asked for years: "Why can't I eat the 'do not eat' packets in food?" My husband told the kids the packets were just silica and not-toxic, but that didn't explain why they couldn't eat them. Now I can tell them why!
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