Sodium carbonate (additionally called washing soda or soda ash), Na2CO3 is a sodium salt of carbonic acid. Sodium bicarbonate or sodium hydrogen carbonate is the chemical compound with the formula NaHCO3.
All of it's forms are white, water-soluble salts. All forms have a strongly alkaline flavor and provide fairly alkaline solutions in water. Historically it becomes extracted from the ashes of vegetation growing in sodium-rich soils.
The sodium carbonate "softens" water helping other cleansing components raise soil from the fabric and suspend the soil within the wash water. The washing soda binds to the minerals which make water difficult and lets in the detergent to be absorbed into fibers well to clean clothes. Washing soda should not be mixed with baking soda, although the 2 compounds are closely associated.
