Does laundry detergent contain gluten?

Does laundry detergent have gluten?

As a kid, my mom took cleaning seriously. The only brands of laundry detergent she ever bought were Tide and Gain. I grew up thinking that even though I had food allergies, at least my skin was not sensitive to soaps and scents.

My freshman year, after the laundry detergent my mom had given me had run out, I decided to go to the store and pick up some. When I saw how expensive laundry detergent was, I picked up “Sun” which was $2.99 for 32 loads! What a deal, right? Wrong! The first week I used it I noticed I was a little bit itchy, and it made me uncomfortable. The next week I made a huge mistake. Along with washing my clothes, I washed all of my towels and bed sheets. Oh my goodness. I cannot describe to you the pain my skin was going though. I was constantly itching and my skin eventually just started burning from the nails against my skin. But, silly Anita, I did not even think that it was my laundry detergent. I just thought that I was bitten by a mosquito (all over my body?), and it would go away. Finally, my friend started asking me questions, and the question “did you just change your laundry detergent?” came up. YES! Of course, that was it! So, I went to the store and bought Gain (original fresh, mmmm) and washed all of my clothes, towels, and bedding, and sure enough, the itch finally went away.

You would think I learnt my lesson about buying cheap laundry detergent… wrong. Just a couple of weeks ago, sophomore Anita ran out of Gain, so I went to Target, and saw “All Small and Mighty” was $3.99 for 32 loads. That was the best deal that I saw, so of course I bought it! Literally, the same thing happened. The first week, I was a little itchy, and the week after when the towels and bedding was washed, I was MISERABLE! The thing that made me upset about this in particular, is that I have used “All” brand before. My aunt uses the normal blue bottle of “All” and it had never made me break out. There must be a reason that the new “small and mighty” is so cheap, and I think it is because either cheap ingredients that I happen to be allergic to, or GLUTEN FILLERS!

When I went laundry detergents websites, I felt like the only thing I was finding out is if the laundry detergent was high efficiency, or environmentally friendly: the websites say NOTHING about the ingredients.

It just makes me upset that this happens. Has anybody else seen the commercials for shampoo with “wheat complex”? It just makes me so angry, why is there gluten in EVERYTHING?!

Well, at least I have learned a lesson. When buying laundry detergent, I will stick with the good stuff. I see lots of Tide and Gain in my future…