Where Does Baking Soda Come From?
Baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate, is an alkaline powder. It is a common household product with a wide range of uses including cooking, cleaning, and personal hygiene.
What is baking soda used for?
As the name suggests, baking is one of the most common uses for baking soda. That’s why it is usually sold in the baking aisle at the grocery store. Baking soda acts as a leavener in bread, cakes, cookies, and more.
Baking soda is also a popular household cleaner. It is an effective odor neutralizer, making it ideal for laundry. It is also a gentle abrasive that is effective at removing tough stains and dirt from most hard surfaces in the kitchen and bathroom.
We use baking soda in our Laundry Powder and Gentle Home Cleaning Scrub.
How to use baking soda in laundry
The easiest way to add baking soda to your laundry routine is to use a detergent made with baking soda. Our Laundry Powder is a powdered laundry detergent made with baking soda, washing soda, and vegetable soap. It’s just as effective as liquid detergent but is ultra-concentrated, plastic-free, and preservative-free.
How to use baking soda for cleaning
Just like with your laundry, you can easily add baking soda to your home cleaning regimen by choosing a cleaner that already includes it. Our Gentle Home Cleaning Scrub is an eco-friendly powder made with safer ingredients like baking soda and vegetable soap. It’s super effective on hard surfaces around your home, including your tub and stovetop.
Where does baking soda come from?
The most common source of baking soda in the US is the Green River Basin in Wyoming, where trona ore is mined and refined into baking soda. Our original Laundry Powder formula used baking soda from this source.
In 2018, we began also sourcing baking soda from Colorado, where the mineral nahcolite (NaHCO3) is extracted from the ground via mining or water extraction. We now source from both US locations, depending on availability.
Both trona and nahcolite can be used to produce baking soda. However, trona ore must first be converted into soda ash, then treated with carbon dioxide. Nahcolite, on the other hand, is a naturally-occurring form of sodium bicarbonate and therefore requires less processing before it can be used.
Regardless of the source, the chemical makeup and cleaning properties of baking soda remain the same. Contrary to popular belief, baking soda does not contain aluminum (that’s baking powder). It’s as people- and planet-friendly as ever.
We also use soda ash (Na2CO3), also known as washing soda or sodium carbonate, that is derived from Wyoming-sourced trona ore in our Laundry Powder and Oxygen Brightener. In this case, the washing soda does not need to be processed to create baking soda.
Feel free to contact us with any questions about our ingredients, supply chain, or how we make our products. We love to talk about how and why we make our products!