Washing your hair, cleaning your clothes and doing the dishes on tour

CampSuds soap can help with your laundry and dishes and act as shampoo and soap for the shower.
Click to enlarge.

It is possible to find a single soap that you can use to wash the dishes, clean your hair and laundry your clothes on tour. The same soap is also biodegradable and since the one soap replaces several other items it is actually lighter then the stuff it replaces.

I use a product called SoapSuds. This product works well for doing all of the things I mentioned above and it is indeed biodegradable.

A tip that several veteran bicycle tourists passed on to me was to take a large ziplock bag along on tour. Open the bag and mix together a small amount of soap and water. Add a piece of clothing and seal the bag shut. Shake the bag for a few moments and presto you now have a portable washing machine.

Repeat the cycle until you have washed all of your dirty clothing. Remove the soap and water from the bag and replace with fresh water and no soap. Rinse all of the recently washed clothing using the same method.

Once the rinse cycle is complete wring the clothing as much as possible to get rid of excess water. Hang the clothing up to dry on a clothing line or alternatively attach the clothing to the outside of your saddlebags for an air drying effect.

I've also used the CampSuds soap for washing the dishes and as a shampoo and soap in the shower. In all cases the soap has worked well.

There are other similar products available from other companies that are likely only a quick web search away. I know that Campsuds makes at least one other version of this product with anti-bug properties.

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