And Then There Were None - The End of Powder Detergent at K-Sears

[gansky1]

Sears detergents were formerly made by DeSoto Inc. in Des Plaines, IL - as was their Easy Living and Weatherbeater paint line, but now I believe their laundry products are made by P&G. Wasn't it last year that CR rated it "Unacceptable" because of some chemical used in it that is harmful to the environment? I don't like the powder because it has a tendency to foam in the rinse cycle but the cleaning seemed fine - but I suppose after four sudsy washes...

Bit 'o trivia: Sears was the first detergent available to the entire nation to offer "No Phosphates" in 1970!

 

[dixieland]

I am currently using a small box of Ariel which I picked up at Kmart in Puerto Rico. The scent is nice (kinda like 1/4 the scent of Mountain Fresh Tide) and the wash water has a nice slippery feel to it. In PR, Ariel is the big seller. Some variations such as the color smells of U.S. Cheer.

Off to Venezuela next week... always fun to see what can be found in South America.

 

[soapnsuds]

Funny, I was just at Sears this weekend looking at washers and they had HUGE boxes of their powder detergent all over. Along with a few small bottles of their liquid (which smelled nasty!) soap. I just heard somewhere, that their powder is supposed to be really good. It was like $19 for that huge box. Didn't seem that bad of a price. As far as powders going away..we seem to have a good even mix here in Sacramento, from what I see. I admit, I use a liquid, but I miss the big (144 load) box of Fresh Start that Price Club (Costco) used to sell years ago. And of course, the all time fav is Ariel baja aspuma! But you have to have that smuggled in by your ex-husbands, best friend's, co-worker's mother in-law from Mexico! Speaking of which, it's time to give the old ex a jingle..I'm almost out of Ariel and he needs to plan a trip down to So. Cal to visit his friend! lol.
Abrazos! -Laurent

 

[MrX]

Launderess

Have you tried Wisk Small and Mighty ?

I've found Persil Small and Mighty pretty effective. Although, there's a strong possibility that Wisk is a totally different formula.

Persil S&M (standard biological) is a fairly thick, but free running clear green liquid.
The colour version is purple. (also biological)

Looking at the ingredients it has a LOT of surfactants compared to others that looked at.

The enzymes are : Protease and Amylase.

It seems to do a quite reasonable job and it rinses out exceptionally easily.
The previous generation of Persil liquigel products were terribly foamy. So much so that if you even slightly overdosed the machine you'd have suds everywhere!!!

Link to the Unilever Ireland ingredients site below

I assume that ALL may be more like Persil Non-Bio.

Without actually seeing the ingredients list of ALL or Wisk products it's hard to know if they are all that similar to Persil UK/IRL.

http://www.unilever.com/PIOTI/EN/p4.asp?selectCountry=IE&language=EN&productid=1513399

 

[MrX]

Persil S&M

Unilever and P&G seem to have gone into an environmental showdown though over here.

Persil's being pushed as saving water, trucks etc with their Small and Mighty
Meanwhile Ariel's doing a "turn to 30" campaign convincing people to wash at very cool temps. They haven't gone quite as far as cold, but this may be because most machines don't actually offer cold washes, 30 is as low as they go.

Here's Persil's "pop up book" ad.

 

[MrX]

This is how it was in the late 80s/early 90s

This was possibly their weirdest ad ever!

 

[seamusuk]

Cold water washing...

Hey Mrx

Hotpoints new range are equipped with the "No heat" option with a dedicated set of programmes.

Personally id never use it - yuk!

Seamus

 

[MrX]

Well, you're definitely better off adding a little heat to ensure the enzymes activate properly and the detergent fully dissolves.

The enzymes will function best between 30 and 40C

 

[toggleswitch]

I DO love my Sears brand powdered detergent!!

I found that the "Free and Clear" pwder is harder to find but regular powder so far still available (at least in central Connecticut).

I'd say powders have been on a steady decline in this country since the "energy crisis" of the early 70's and the switch to cold water washes.

Traditional American top-loaders generally did not have a detergent dispenser. Now that front-loaders are all the rage here, we can see that the dispenser dissolves the powdered detergent in warm to hot water even with a cold wash; so powdered detergents are now easier to use and provide better results. With cold water washes in a top-loader, powders dumped on top of clothing was causing detergent streaks, hence the desirability (lessened performace and all) of liquid detergents.

 

[spoodles]

mrx

I bought some All Small & Mighty whilst in the US, and aside from being enzyme free, it's not particularly similar to Persil Non-Bio S&M. It's hard to tell as they don't list ingredients the way euro detergents do. They have stronger (very nice) scents than Persil NB. I found it produces even less suds than Persil S&M does (I was using the HE version) and it also cleans really well. I doubt that the ingredients would be suitable for very sensitive skin in most of the All variants, unless using the free & clear version which may be more like the Persil NB formula?

I think Wisk is more in line with Persil, as the bottles of that stuff had the Persil/Omo/Skip "splat" logo on them.

Once Unilever sells their US laundry brands the new owners may change formulas all over again.

 

[mrboilwash]

Unilever sells their US laundry brands ?

That is sad because they seem to have surrrendered to Henkel and P&G in Germany as well. The last advertising campaign I remember for Sunil (UK Persil) is about 10 years back. Think it was something with pelicans. There is not even a website for Sunil. The only heavily promoted detergents are fabricsofteners and a product for delicates.

 

[spoodles]

Yes they put them up for sale last year.

The latest news is that a private-label company Huish along with Church & Dwight are in the final running to buy them from Unilever. Henkel are no longer in the running for them now.

By the way, isn't Coral a bigger brand than Sunil for Unilever in Germany?

 

[mrboilwash]

Right, Coral is still on TV, but it is only a niche brand for delicates and competes with Perwoll.

 

[kenmoreguy64]

Here's a thought to ponder

It may be interesting to watch the US detergent market in the next year or two. Powdered detergents indeed are vanishing on store shelves, but I think some will remain for a while to satisfy a few consumers who don't like liguids.

BUT, an ever-growing factor in these markets is going to become freight/transportation if it hasn't already. Shipping heavy liquids around in big plastic bottles is going to become more and more expensive with prices of plastic resins and fuel increasing.

Since squared-off boxes (most powders) are most space efficient and they seem to weigh less per load, I think powder MAY get a reprieve as it becomes cheaper, relatively speaking, to move it to market.

I have recently been told that powders are easier on machines, mechanically speaking, especially on seals. That makes sense as at least in the original and 1st generation ultra liquids, the formulas often contained alcohol, which can dry out rubber. I have a good bit of liquid, but am going to switch back to powder when it's gone, at least while I can.

 

[MrX]

Henkel's in that position in the UK and IRL

I think what it's coming down to is that if you're #3 player in the detergent business in a particular market it's not economic to compete.

Henkel has no presence in the UK and Ireland at all other than 1 delicates / sensitive skin powder that isn't even very popular or widely available, Felleti?
I haven't even seen it on the shelves in Ireland in years.

Unilever's still a GIGANTIC organisation and very dominant in the laundry detergent business in quite a lot of countries other than the US and Germany.

I suppose you 'pick your fights'.

Seems the US is totally dominated by Tide and very little else survives
and Germany's the home of Henkel

 

[brisnat81]

50-50 split here

In AU we still have an even split between powders and liquids.

I use Drive and Drivematic for all but coloured loads, and it is a great, but expensive performer. Choice reviewed it last year and rated it as a top performer, but due to its phosphate and salt content it is terrible for the environment.

I use Omomatic Colourlock powder for my coloured loads and when the Omo Colour S&M was released recently, I bought a bottle of that.

On the upside the S&M doesnt smell as strong as the powder, but I'm starting to notice that under the fragrance, the perspiration odors arent coming out. For now I'm alternating the Powder with the Liquid and will do so until the Liquids gone, I wont be buying another bottle however.

The Omo products here smell quite strongly and the only reason I'm using the Colourlock product is that we have few colour products available. I like the Drive, because the only smell is a slight chemical fragrence that my brain associates with clean.

 

[MrX]

Persil (Unilever) has been very neutral smelling here for a long time. It's Ariel that absolutely stinks of added scents. It's very over powering and seems to be increasingly so.

It now smells like some kind of a combination of fake coconut/almond and cheap car pine air freshener !!

 

[launderess]

BJ's Wholesale Club

Local laundromat buys those huge boxes of Tide and such from BJ's, and while they are indeed huge nothing like the boxes of Cold Power Dad brought home. Those boxes were the size of small crates and were large enough for a small child to climb into (which my brothers did, as once the containers were empty they were given over to the boys for play).

Mom had a type of stand next to her Whirlpool that held those boxes so they were raised a bit from floor level, not a bad thing considering some of the basement flooding we had.

Push to liquids:

Think part of the push towards liquids from powders is that the former have come far in formulations in that TOL liquid detergents easily equal powders. If CR is to be trusted, most if not all the top five detergents are liquids. Also liquid detergents can do double duty as a pre-treater, saving the Mrs. the bother and expense of two products.

 

[MrX]

Do people really use pre-treaters though ?!

I don't know anyone who does.

 

[MrX]

What I have heard though is that because they now have relatively good stable enzymes that can be used in liquids that the liquid detergents are cheaper to manufacture than powders!

Their formulas are significantly less complex if you look at the European ingredients declarations. The powders have many more components.