Pre-wash as part of a normal cycle in Europe is long gone. It’s usually a selected option and often only available on a single long cotton cycle. I can’t remember anyone using it in my lifetime. I don’t think the prewash section of the drawer of any machine I’ve seen being used was ever used. It’s one of those things that exists in theory but not in practice.
Miele is an outlier on this still adds it if you select “heavily soiled” on the W1 machines with twin dos, but it’s not something most people would use and it’s available across most (eg except wool and Quick wash cycles)
I’d say the majority of Europeans probably put everything on a Cottons 40°C cycle, and usually not the extremely long cycles that can sometimes be the default. Most machines have a time saver or short button that reduces it to la round 60 or 70 mins for the full cycle and it’s more than adequate for normal laundry.
You might use a delicates cycle for say your favourite shirts and t-shirts but I honestly think most people don’t pay that much attention. Loads of cycles on machines very likely never, or rarely get used.
Obviously the wool cycle is useful, but apart from that ? I’ve endless cycles for proofing sportswear abs all sorts of things I just can’t see myself using.
There isn’t all that much thought put in beyond close door and start machine.
Pods seem to work well in some machines and not in others. It’s very variable. Some machines will tend to fling them into the door seal boot no matter what you do with them, while others are perfectly fine with them.
Personally, I think auto dose will replace them in Europe over the next few years as more and more machines offer it.
For whatever reasons, the detergent makers seem to hate washing powder and I can’t speak for other places, but here in Ireland the shelf space given to powder has been shrinking rapidly over the last few years. I would say 80% or more of the space in most supermarkets is now pods and liquids, with powder consigned to the lower priority shelves and not really in focus.
If you went back to the 80s and 90s powder was very dominant with liquids being relatively niche and I don’t think they worked as well. If you look at all the older liquid ads here they were talking about how you should scrunch it into the stain to pretreat. I don’t think anyone ever did that. I don’t remember anyone ever pretreating laundry here. If it didn’t come out clean, they’d be rather annoyed with the product and there’s never really been any expectation that you should have to do any extra steps beyond just putting them into the drum, adding detergent and starting.
The main reason I remember liquid appearing in our house was some promotion or ad. Some bottle or Ariel, Persil, Bold or Wisk would come home and it would be found to be a load of hassle with disoenser balls that rattled around the drum and all of that and the result was it wouldn’t be bought again.
Liquids became a lot more effective since the early 2000s, but the dosing was still a pain in the rear as the machines are built with powder drawers by default.
Then along came pods an auto dosing and it suddenly became less hassle.
The single biggest complaints about powder here were always that it caused the machine drawer to become caked up and that required maintenance (even if only once every few months it’s still annoying) the other issue was it tends to spill on the floor land in the fabric softener compartment and generally be messy.
I know most of you probably use careful dosing. The average person doesn’t. Most people I know would just pour powder straight from an over sized box into the drawer and often fill it to the top, use an old tea cup or with liquids just take wild guesses at how much to put in and just pour a “dollop” (probably enough for about 3 washes) in at a time.
It’s the same with conditioner/softener. Most people seem to just pour an amount into the dispenser and not measure it. So if it’s extremely concentrated, they end up totally overdosing the load.
That’s why Pods are popular. People really are annoyed if they have to measure stuff. It’s laziness but that’s how people are.
If pods are going to be with us long term, it’s about time the manufactures just pot a pod pouch in the lifters or something like that to ensure they’re mixed in fully. It can’t be that difficult to just come up with some simple solution to it like that.
