Question from E.L.
Per Hulda Clark’s recommendation in “The Cure for All Diseases”, I’ve been using Borax as my laundry detergent for a number of years now. I always do two rinse cycles–the first with a cup of vinegar added to help get out residue, and the second with just plain water.
It recently occurred to me that boric acid comes from borax, and it is toxic enough to kill insects. I have MCS, and I’m now wondering if wearing clothes and sleeping in bedding washed in borax is hazardous to my health? First of all, is borax toxic or just the boric acid which comes from it? Second, if it is, would the amount of rinsing I do on my laundry loads negate that?
Thank you.
Debra’s Answer
I posted some info on the health effects of borax at Q&A: what are some natural emulsifiers for cleaning products, but let’s discuss it more here.
I hauled out my chemical dictionary to see if you were correct in your logical that “boric acid comes from borax” therefore borax may be toxic.
First, borax is natural sodium borate, found in salt lakes and alkali soils. Once, while driving through Death Valley in southern California, I just had to stop at the Twenty Mule Team Museum in the tiny town of Boron, where much of the borax used in this country is mined. You can see on display the boron right out of the ground. Borax is about as natural a natural mineral as you can get.
Boric acid is a manufactured product made by two methods 1) adding hydrochloric acid or sulfuric acid to a solution or borax and crystallizing or 2) extraction from borax brines with various petrochemicals, then stripped using sulfuric acid.
There are a number of forms of borax listed in my chemical dictionary, they all have uses such as herbicide, weed killer, soil sterilant, fungus control…and borax itself is one of the best things to use to clean mold. So it does have that property of killing micro-organisms, albeit in a natural way.
Now, to get to your question, is wearing clothes and sleeping in bedding washed in borax hazardous to your health? I would say no, or at least, it would be less toxic than other things you might wash your clothes in, like detergent. It sounds like with all the rinsing, it would probably rinse out. It’s not the same as boric acid.
