That would be lye, very caustic. Appears to be a fairly aggressive product. I bet it cleans well. Try it on something dirty and filthy like rags.

Washer will be fine.

Ha ha. If water didn't get hot washer will be fine :) stainless steel doesn't react to high ph but it eats aluminum.

Well my philosophy is any machine that can't stand up to detergents, bleaches, additives, heat, isn't a very good machine. Unless your washing well....in plain water your going to expose the equipment to chemicals even in the most simplistic sense with any store bought brand. If manufacturors wouldn't cheap out and use higher quality material to justify the prices their getting, you might get some longevity. As I mentioned before we beat up a first generation duet for 12 years with industrial chemicals. It survived past it's useful 10 year life, and we never spent a penney on a repair. However there were other Whirlpools with corroded broken spiders and not subjected to such toxicity.

A lot of detergents contain lye, as PH Buliders... Just in very small amounts.

rps - lye being the 2nd ingredient I was merely curious if it was enough to react with water. Seems it was :)

Lol, yeah haven't seen lye since I was a child. That's all the old timers used, that and fells naphtha and a jug of bleach. Clothes were always sparkling. She would wash those railroad greasy coveralls and came out cleaner than a whistle in the ole broke down double Dexter. :)

I make soap and always have a supply of lye. It's getting harder to find. Lye and animal fat soap was the laundry standard. I make a batch every few months for a customer. It really is a great stain remover if made with laundry in mind.

I don't make my own laundry soap. Closest I got was making some test bars with various alterations for my kid for a science fair. He did a test of homemade detergents vs commercial. I make bars as a special order for a client who uses the soap for her laundry and as pretreatment bars. Totally different than anything on the store shelf or any soap you would use in the shower.

Thinking about ruined clothing. Is this guy using body soap on his clothes? Body soap has oils remaining in the bar that I would imagine would be damaging and counter productive for laundry. It would be like mixing fabric softner with the detergent in the wash.

Crazy folks who don't understand why I have 50 different laundry detergents have told me how they make laundry "detergent" with bar soap, borax and washing soda. Just wondering if that is what the AW guy was doing. This lady uses nothing but what she calls lye soap to clean her house and laundry. She's never smelled funny so it must be working OK :).

I found that same stuff for a dollar a bag in a salvage store. I worked pretty well in my front loader. Not too much suds and cleaned decent. Ended up using it as a prewash detergent.

Not so sure about the Sears "won't ruin an expensive machine". Fordtech, a poster here and on AW used Sears detergent only for several years in his F/L and he decided to check the outer/inner tubs for build up and took it apart. The outside of his inner tub was coated with rock hard build-up. He finally got it all off the heating element but couldn't do much with the tub. You might find it here or on AW by doing a search. Part of that could be his water mixed with the Sears. Earlier pics of his previous machine he posted here and AW was of when he used liquid detergent all of the time. It was a slimy, moldy mess instead of being rock hard and white.

I have used Sears and really like it but I never used it several years straight running.

I could never stick with 1 detergent long enough to test whether it would be ruined. I'm still unsure why a 0 fat soap would do damage though. I always assumed it was the fat and ph difference in the soap that caused the scum? Meaning free oils in the soap itself and not enough alkalinity?

http://www.cleaninginstitute.org/clean_living/soaps__detergents_chemistry.aspx

Seems like the problem with soap is hard water. So assuming chemically softened water, how does a vegetable or animal fat based soap differ from a detergent?

Quite frankly I find it unlikely Sears detergent was attributed to ruining the machine. The contents of that product is really nothing different than the countless blends of powered detergents on the market then, and now. The new formula removed the Metasilicate and the phosphates went away.

There are more than 26 toxic chemicals blended in almost every detergent we purchase. Some of those corrosive, caustic, acidic. They just don't tell you that. So it wouldn't be beyond disbelief over time some detoriation occurs. If your getting crud and buildup it's likely attributed to poor water, washing in warm and cold water. Funny though those machines of yesteryear front load, top load, wringer never had such problems, and most got used and abused for 20 plus years. Hmmm...Interesting.

You need to look it up and see his pics and what he said. He said he had been using Sears.. Before he had used Persil but was tired of ordering and they tried Sears and liked it but had no idea what it was doing to the washer. Again, his first machine was liquid only plus liquid softener and it was a mess so he learned from that one. Got the new one and washed in Persil then Sears and used Hot and warm. I doubt any cold cause anyone who knows anything about Sears detergent knows it will not dissolve in cold water. The one with the Sears build up may only be posted on AW.The gunky one was here and AW. And yes he may have hard water, can't remember that. I am sure DaDoes saw the pics and remembers the story.

That would be interesting to see.