At our last apartment my husband and I noticed a smell. Over time we also noticed that our clothes had begun to pick up the smell, and to this day we have yet to get the smell out of our clothes. Over the summer I decided I would purchase some scented laundry detergent (since what we had was homemade and virtually unscented). I went to the store and looked through the various bottles and boxes and found Gain's Moonlight Breeze "detergent". It smells so good! I knew it was just what I needed. I took it home and used it all summer and probably would have continued to use it if it wouldn't have been for a friend exclaiming "I didn't know you could use fabric softener as detergent!" And that, my friends, is what caused me to look a little harder at the bottle and I faintly read the words "Fabric Softener". Well, of course, I was embarrassed. But this posed the question:
Can you use Fabric Softener as Detergent?
And here are my findings!
The short answer is no- Fabric softener and detergent ARE different. Detergent cleans your clothes, while fabric softener helps control static, soften your clothes and adds some yummy scent.
Fabric softener is also added by your machine during the rinse cycle so that it is diluted and doesn't make your clothes oily.
Fabric softener will NOT clean your clothes, however it will mask your clothes in scent. This can either be good or bad. It could either be like a teenage boy drenching himself in cologne after gym class or it could be like showering at night versus showering in the morning- no one will really know. For us it was the former. Our clothes smelled good right out of the dryer, but after being worn throughout the day we always thought we stank (because we probably did). And we didn't stink like our old apartment anymore, we stank like body odor. Gross!
I read it put like this: "Think of it like shampoo and conditioner , detergent is shampoo [and cleans the clothes] and fabric softener is conditioner for your clothes." (http://www.todaysmodernwoman.com/cleaning-laundry/142207.htm )
In this article she also says that from her personal experience, she has had clothes stain from fabric softener being poured directly on them!
Ultimately I wouldn't even recommend it when you are desperate, but you may decide otherwise. The big turn off for me was realizing my clothes weren't really getting clean. All that dirt, sweat and grime from the summer was only getting watered. And the mask of the fabric softener scent didn't really even last throughout the day.
I would recommend reading your labels carefully before checking out and even looking up the brand and scent online if you are not 100% sure!
