soft soap for pests- what is it

[mrs baggins]

have read about using a solution of soft soap for pests and I want to try to get away from commercial pesticides but what exactly is soft soap? is it something you buy or can you make it just using ordinary bar or other soap?

[shirlthegirl43]

I will assume you mean for greenfly on roses and suchlike? If so, then a washing up liquid solution is great. My mum used to wash up in a bowl in the sink (only in summer, in winter just the sink) and when the washing up was done, the water got chucked over the roses!!

I use a squirt of ecover in a sprayer bottle of water and spray the little blighters.

[Snadger]

I'm probably showing my age here, but when I was at junior school we had this horrible brown smelly (carbolic?) yucky liquid stuff that came out of a dispenser over the wash basins...........that was soft soap!

I can still remember the smell of it now!

[rustylady]

Carbolic (I remember it well and love the smell) Green Fairy soap in a bar, but if you can't get them then use diluted washing up liquid. I think the idea is that the soap or detergent breaks down the insects protective covering and starts drying them out, so they either die, fall off your plant, or move on

[mrs baggins]

Oh thats ok then I thought it was something specific. I have some anti bacterial hard soap i was asked to use before an operation to get rid of germs on the body prior to operation. could I use this or would it be a bit too much? cant think of the name of the soap but it was bright blue!!

[Alison]

I just use washing up water concentration liquid and spray that. Don't know if there is anything else in the bacterial soap you're talking about but find that a bit of diluted Ecover works a treat although you usually need to keep on top of it and stop the little blighters doing the worst!