Finding Natural Laundry Detergent While Traveling

My family and friends know that I am not a light packer. I like to be prepared for most situations. Even if we are traveling to a warm destination, I will bring one outfit for cooler weather. You never know when there will be a cool or hot day. Add a baby into the mix and my husband and I joked that we should have purchased a bigger vehicle. As I was packing for our 5 night out of town trip, I wondered if I needed to bring my natural, baby friendly detergent. I decided against it since we agreed to use disposable diapers while out of town. What I failed to realize from being less than experienced with "baby on board" travel is that baby clothes/blankets/etc. will inevitably need to be washed for some reason.

On a quest for natural, baby friendly laundry detergent we go! I did not want to buy a full sized product, so my mom and I went looking for a sample size. The local Whole Foods was smaller than the Whole Foods that I usually shop one. The only detergents available were Whole Foods 365 brand and Method. I have my reasons for not using Method cleaning products, so that brand was out, and I did not have enough background on the Whole Foods 365 brand to feel comfortable purchasing a whole container. No luck at Whole Foods.

Mom and I continued our journey to Buy Buy Baby. I located two brands: BabyGanics and Rockin' Green. Rockin' Green detergent is on my list of natural, baby safe detergents, but I just could not allow myself to buy a whole bag for this one time. Yes, I could have brought it home, but I have so much laundry detergent at home already. (I made a deal with my husband last year that I would hold off buying laundry detergent until I went through most of what I had in the laundry room). The BabyGanics brand did have a small sample size for three washes. Unfortunately, the last ingredient in the list was fragrance. I avoid fragrances in body and cleaning products if I know they are in there. No luck at Buy Buy Baby either.

In the end, I did not buy a natural laundry detergent and ended up washing in only hot water. I added laundry detergent to the family packing list to avoid finding myself in this situation again.

>> Have you found yourself in a similar situation? What did you do??