Borax is a trade name for a naturally occuring mineral also known as sodium borate.

People have been using borax for over 100 years to clean their home and for use in their laundry.
Although it has been around for a long time it doesn't seem to be widely know what you can use borax for.
The article below attempts to answer this question, and provide recipes and instructions for ways to use borax powder throughout your home for cleaning, stain removal, laundry, and even for pest control.
Borax can be used in your laundry in many ways, from softening hard water, deodorizing, and as a soak for delicates.
It can even be part of recipes for homemade laundry detergent.
Borax is billed as an "all natural laundry booster."
What it means by that is that when you add borax to your wash it helps improve the effectiveness of the laundry detergent by conditioning, or softening the water so that the laundry detergent can do its job more easily.
To use borax as a laundry booster just add 1/2 cup of borax to each load of laundry (3/4 cup for large loads) along with your regular detergent.
Borax also helps deodorize your laundry as you use it in the wash.
You can soak delicate clothing in a solution of borax and detergent to wash it without putting it into the washing machine.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Combine the ingredients in the sink or tub where you will soak the delicate clothing, and add the clothing where it should soak for about half an hour. Then, rinse the delicates in cool water and air dry them.
Borax not only helps laundry detergent work better, as discussed above, it also helps remove baby stains, laundry stains and carpet stains.
Borax is a great cloth diaper soak. Just add a 1/2 cup of borax to the diaper pail water and let it presoak until you are ready to wash the diapers.
Then, wash the diapers in hot water and your regular detergent, adding a 1/2 cup of borax to the wash water.
Borax also can be used for other laundry stains, such as tomato sauce, chocolate, and dirt stains.
You can presoak the stained clothing in a solution of 1 tablespoon of borax to every gallon of water for at least half an hour first, or if you presoak directly in the washer add 1/2 cup of borax to the water.
Here are some additional articles on Stain-Removal-101.com which discuss using borax for laundry stain removal:
Finally, you can use borax to remove stains from your carpet. Click here for information on how to use borax to clean carpet, including a recipe for borax carpet stain remover.
Borax can be used as an ingredient in many different homemade cleaning recipes for around your home. These include:
Ingredients:
Directions: Sprinkle the borax into the toilet bowl and use your toilet brush to scrub it around. Next, let the borax sit for at least half an hour (or even longer) and then flush.
Click here to see even more homemade toilet cleaners recipes using borax.
You can sprinkle borax powder onto a damp sponge and wipe down your bathroom surfaces, like tile, bathtub, shower, porcelain and fiberglass, and also your kitchen counters and the surface of your kitchen appliances to clean, deodorize, and also remove soap scum and hard water film.
Periodically your dishwasher should be cleaned to get rid of detergent residue and hard water stains.
You can do this by adding a 1/4 cup of borax to the bottom of the dishwasher and running it on empty, with the hottest water possible.
Here is a video giving tips for how to use borax to clean your garbage disposal.
Here are some additional homemade cleaning recipes where borax is an ingredient:
Another use for borax powder is to control certain pests in your home.
Check out this video giving tips for using borax to get rid of fleas in your carpet.
The main supplier of borax is The Dial Corporation under the name "20 Mule Team Borax."
It can be purchased in many grocery stores, generally in the laundry aisle.
You can also purchase 20 Mule Team Borax online through the link below, although I would suggest trying to find it in stores, since the prices online seem to be inflated.
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| Buy 20 Mule Team Borax |
I'm sure there are even more ways to use borax in your home.
That's why I've created a page on the site where you can tell me your borax uses, and also read even more uses which have already been submitted.

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CAUTION: This website is provided for informational purposes only, and Stain-Removal-101.com provides it as is, without warranties or guarantees. Some stains just won't come out, and are permanent. Further, some stain removal methods can harm your item, so if the stained item is sentimental or expensive call a professional. See disclaimer of liability for more information.
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