A Few New Detergents

[frigilux]

I rewatched ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’ (1985; dir. Stephen Frears) and had completely forgotten about the punning use of the word ‘Omo’. Daniel Day Lewis uses it as a nickname for one of the other characters. Anyway, meandered over to NavaFresh and Altruan, searched for Omo detergents and ordered a few.

The first to arrive was Omo Active Fresh For Whites. That one came from Amazon, I believe. Have only used it once, so have nothing to report yet.

The one I really like is Omo Professional Disinfectant Plus. That one came from Altruan. Huge 19 pound box. Suds breaks down well for the first spin; it eliminated ketchup, Worcestershire, chocolate syrup and coffee stains. As with most other detergents, it did not remove the Rao’s marinara completely, nor the Frank’s hot sauce.

More detergent is on the way from NavaFresh: Neu, Lime-Scented Tide, and Omo Active Fresh For Colors.
Oh, and more TideMatic, as I’ve become very fond of it. Will add those to this thread when they arrive.

Photos 1-3: Omo Professional Disinfectant Plus (from The Netherlands, I believe)
Photos 4-5 Omo Active Fresh For Whites (from Turkey)[this post was last edited: 10/21/2024-09:19]

 

[hoover1100]

Very nice

I think the Omo was sold here as "Persil Hygiene" I'm not sure if it's still available.

We go to Turkey every year, I always bring back some detergents, Omo active fresh is my favourite, the scent is lovely and the cleaning power is as good as any of the best detergents I have used.

The only downside is with baggage allowances on the plane home I can only really get 2 1kg bags along with the rest of our stuff, given you have to use 150g per load (and you really do need that much, I have tried with less and the results were not as good) that means you only get 10 washes per bag.

The scent is so much better than the equivalent Persil bio powder sold here!

The packaging has changed when we went in July, but other than that the formula and scent are the same as the bag you have.

Matt

 

[launderess]

We've Got You Now!

You're one of us Frig! Laundry product/detergent hoarder. *LOL*

Soon everywhere you turn in your home will find stashes of laundry detergent. Yet you'll still find yourself buying more and more.

Hahahaha!

 

[launderess]

That Turkish Ariel is "Alpine Fresh" elsewhere and is lovely.

Have it in Ariel Excel gel and fell in love with fragrance. Sadly bought two containers many years ago on special offer and scent has waned. Oh it smells alright in container and during wash cycle, but no longer lingers on wash once dry. More is the pity as simply cannot rubbish remaining stash and buy new. Well once could but would be an intolerable waste.

IIRC there is also "Alpine fresh" offered by Dash, but not sure if scent is same.

Who's tried Ariel Alpine laundry detergent?

Has anyone tried the Ariel Alpine detergent? How does it compare in scent to other detergents and to the original Ariel? I personally love all things Persil (Henkel variety from Germany). This detergent intrigues me even though I'm not normally a fan of the Ariel scent. I'm considering ordering...

www.automaticwasher.org

 

[launderess]

Thing about "Omo Professional Disinfectant Plus" along with balance of "hygiene" detergents offered in Europe is dosage. One must use recommended amounts on packet to achieve desired sanitation and other benefits.

Sanitation/hygiene benefits of these detergents depend largely upon a ratio of bleach activator to oxygen bleach (sodium percarbonate or perborate). Reducing dosage lowers that ratio so there you are. One cannot compensate easily by say usual AW methods such as adding STPP or other boosters to wash.

Suppose one could sit down and work out lower dosages based upon say local water conditions, but then one would also need to do testing in terms of sanitation/germ killing.

Have long seen such products on offer at not so dear rates. However, given dosages required packets wouldn't go far, thus cost per wash is rather dear.

 

[frigilux]

Launderess- It has been fun trying detergents from outside the US, but storage space has definitely become an issue. It’s also been interesting living in a small apartment that smells like the detergent aisle. Going forward, I’ll probably pare the stock down substantially. Tide Professional, UK Persil Bio, Omo Professional (Netherlands) and probably TideMatic or ArielMatic (India) are favorites and all clean very well.

As you mentioned, Omo Pro Disinfectant Plus has a strict dosage requirement in order to achieve disinfection, so I don’t rely on it for that purpose. I like the no-nonsense, more old school scent, which reminds me a bit of detergents from my youth, about 150 years ago.

Matt- I like Omo Active Fresh For Whites, too. I’ve been using Omo Professional almost exclusively the last 8-10 loads. Will have to switch to Active Fresh for a few loads. The scent of Active Fresh is great. I found it’s a sudsier than Pro, so I’ll need to fine tune the dosage. It’ll be interesting to compare Active Fresh For Whites with Active Fresh for Colors, both in cleaning and in scent. Nice collection of Turkish detergents you have there!

 

[frigilux]

Links to Altruan and NavaFresh:

https://altruan.com/

https://navafresh.com/

 

[jamiel]

That Altruan link is kind of fun---the English translations are wild!!

 

[frigilux]

Jamie- Also kind of funny is that all communications from Altruan are in German. I reached back to my one year of German in the 5th grade and hoped for the best.

 

[gansky1]

 

Interesting Omo finds, Nathan and Michael brought a stash of Omo Ultimate when they visited last summer from Austrailia and sent me a box.  It's wonderful stuff and the scent is light and clean.  

 

[frigilux]

gansky1- I looked around online for Omo Ultimate, but haven’t found a vendor. I’ve been impressed with Omo Professional and Omo Active Fresh For Whites. I wasn’t expecting them to be such good performers. Neither causes problems with oversudsing in the SQ front-loader. I’d hate to live in this area without a water softener, but it does make some detergents go crazy in a front-loader. At any rate, glad you have a personal connection to the detergent market down under!

 

[frigilux]

Received a package from NavaFresh yesterday with several detergents from India. Have used the Tide Double Power Lemon & Mint and Neu, which touts using biodegradable enzymes.

Neu also has a not-obnoxious citrus scent which smells to me like orange & lemon. Did a stained kitchen towel test and was very surprised that it did better than the Tide Double Power. Glad it’s a good performer because I have three bags of it.

Tide Double Power Lemon & Mint smells nice, but I didn’t have great results with it. TideMatic, Tide Professional and Tide Oxi—all powders—beat it handily. The Tide Naturals line has great scents, but cleaning is not up to Tide standards. I won’t pursue any more of those. Fine for lightly soiled loads.

Also in the package was a bag of ArielMatic (front-load specific) and Omo Active Fresh For Colors. Omo Active For Whites is excellent, as is Omo Professional, so the version for colors has a high bar.

 

[brisnat81]

Hi Eugene,

Let me know when you burn through this batch and I’m sure I can arrange to send you a box, either of ultimate or original.

Cheers

Nathan

 

[frigilux]

Thanks, Nathan! I’ll keep that in mind.

 

[frigilux]

Finally, a little box of Ariel All In 1 Pods from Scotland. Friends visited family in Ireland and picked up this little gem at a grocery store in a small town in Scotland. We were finally able to get together last night.

The packaging is very different than what we’re used to in the US, which is often either a hard shell plastic container or a resealable bag. This one is a cardboard box in which the top sections lifts away from the bottom.

The small box measures 5.5” x 4.5” x 3.75” (W x H x D) and contains 13 pods.

Am going to wash sheets later, so will give one a try.

 

[jamiel]

I grabbed a box of those Ariel pods when we were in Manchester UK to wash with; brought the rest home. The box was really well designed to be both childproof and all-cardboard. Pods seemed to work well both in the FL Bosch we used at the B&B and the rest in my DD Whirlpool at home.

 

[frigilux]

Jamie- Since switching from a SQ top-loader back to a front-loader—also SQ—in 2023, I’ve found that pods/pacs produce enough suds to trip the washer’s suds removal protocol during the first spin. I have softened water.

Washed sheets with a UK Ariel pod and was encouraged that it did not cause the machine to enter the SR protocol. The sheets had a heavy scent out of the washer, but it was much lighter after the dryer.

Decided to try a more challenging mixed load that contained some heavy bath linens. That was all it took. It produced thick, lathery suds to high heaven during the spin and triggered the SR routine. Both loads were washed in cool water (around 80-85 degrees F).

For those of you without sudsing issues, the Ariel pods do clean very well.

There are only a dozen pods left in the box, so I’ll use them on loads without any heavy, absorbent items in it.