Can You Mix Borax and Bleach? Is It Safe? [Full Guide]

Published by Ahmad Jamal on March 26, 2023 | Last updated on May 14, 2023

Mixing cleaning products can sometimes lead to increasing the effectiveness of the cleaning solution, while other times it would be disastrous.

So, Can You Mix Borax and Bleach? This is going to be the center of the CleanersAdvisor guide to cleaning.

Borax is a great cleaning product, so is bleach, and mixing them can result in either a great combination that makes cleaning easier, or a disastrous toxic and gas-producing combination.

In this guide, prepared by CleanersAdvisor experts, we’ll talk about what Borax is, while we disclosed what bleach is as a cleaning product in this guide.

Moreover, we’ll help you decide whether can you mix borax and bleach or not, and how effective such a mixture can be.

Additionally, you’ll learn about products you should not mix with borax, and how to use the latter in laundry.

Let’s start by breaking down what borax is.

Table of Contents

What Is Borax?

Borax is a powdered ingredient that is found in a handful of cosmetics, detergents, and cleaning products.

Visibly, it’s colorless crystals that can easily dissolve in water, creating the cleaning solution used in different cleaning uses.

Those cleaning uses include:

Whitening White Clothes
Softening Hard Water
Laundry Disinfecting
Stain Removing
Releasing Soap Residue

What Is Borax

Can You Mix Borax and Bleach

Let’s address the elephant in the room, shall we? Can You Mix Borax and Bleach?

Yes, you can. Those two substances can be mixed together, however, make sure you follow the instructions disclosed on both products’ labels.

Together, borax and bleach can create a more powerful combination that works on harder-to-remove stains and odors on clothes, while whitening the clothes in the process.

It’s tested and proved that both substances won’t produce any toxic and noxious fumes when mixed together, in contrast to what happens when you mix bleach and OxiClean.

Don’t worry, we’ll explain later how to mix borax and bleach.

Is It More Effective When You Mix Borax and Bleach?

Borax is an alkaline substance that raises the pH level of the bleach when mixed together.

Therefore, chlorine bleach becomes more effective at removing stains, odors, and whitening clothes.

Moreover, when the borax is added to bleach, the bleach’s effects are empowered, as the bleach produces oxygen after it’s mixed with borax, and this oxygen helps break down stains and get rid of odors faster.

Can You Mix Borax and Bleach

How to Mix Borax and Bleach?

Mixing Borax and Bleach is actually a simple method, add 0.5 cup of borax to your clothes washing cycle along with the regular amount of detergent and bleach.

This small amount of borax will empower the bleach and detergent immensely, and help whiten clothes as well.

Mixing borax and bleach can also work in a different manner, to pretreat stains, by creating a paste out of bleach and borax, mixing equal parts of both cleaning substances, and pasting them on the stain spot.

Afterward, leave the paste on the stain for 5-10 minutes, then wash it as usual.

Reminder: always exercise caution when using bleach, and read through our other guides to know how to deal with it carefully.

What Should You Not Mix with Borax?

Borax should never be mixed with acids of any kind.

Moreover, they should never even be stored alongside those acids.

Always store borax in the original, intact packaging inside a dry and covered warehouse, according to the manufacturer.

How to Use Borax and Bleach in Laundry

We’ve already established that we can mix borax and bleach for cleaning clothes.

Here’s a video explaining how to use borax and bleach in laundry:

Can You Mix Bleach and Borax to Clean a Toilet?

In this CleanersAdvisor guide, we’ve specified the experts’ talk on how to use the mixture to clean clothes and laundry, but can we use it to clean a toilet.

We advise against it. Toilets could’ve been cleaned with other toilet bowl cleaners, and bleach doesn’t work well with them and a mixture between both substances can be lethal, releases toxic gases all over the bathroom.

However, use borax alone to clean the toilet. Put a 1/4 cup of borax in the bowl, and let it sit there overnight.

Once you wake up, scrub the stains away with ease.

During different stages in cleaning the toilet bowl, we focused more on how to use borax, instead of bleach, for safety assurance.

To Wrap Up

You can mix borax and bleach for a better and deeper and more powerful cleaning solution against stains and odors.

Moreover, such a mixture can whiten clothes further, in addition to the additional cleaning power.

By the end of this guide, you’ve already had the basic idea about mixing borax and bleach, how it becomes powerful, and how to mix them properly in 2 different methods.

If you have any questions regarding this guide, feel free to ask us in the comments section below, and our CleanersAdvisor experts team will get back to you as soon as possible with answers.