GV DW Detergent Fans...

[mich]

There Powder Detergent is being discontinued, apparently, and it looks like we won't be seeing it come back.

IRRC, this was a extremely popular detergent among members here, so it's sad seeing it discontinued. I know it worked extremely well, when mixed with Phosphates, and even without. Almost a high grade knockoff of Cascade Complete, at half the cost.

Anyhow, I thought I'd tell all of you. If you find it, it wouldn't be a bad idea to grab a few more boxes, and store them, in dry cool spaces with ziploc bags.

Mich

 

[andic29]

Didn't the GV detergent get a "best buy" rating from Consumer Reports at one time?

Im assuming this stuff has enzymes?

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Apparently....

They messed up with formulations/makers several people found that it changed, white patina and white spots on plastic were the most reported probs, along with decreed cleaning....they sweared it was different than the good stuff cascade-like they knew.....
Looks like it was just in some areas, while you still found the "good" stuff in others, maybe they had 2 different makers based on the location, like for southern or norhern market or easter or western?? I mean..to cut out transportation costs.. An assumption...
Anyway, it's reputation falled down quite a bit from what I heard....but anyway not enough to ruin the name for what I know..and indeed is a pretty strange story this one.
I don't see walmart giving up a store brand like that, they're probably going to find a replacement brand made for walmart..
Too bad for us laundry and dishwashing folks that US store brands rarely mention who the manufacturer is...
Here you are obliged by law...but there is a huge downside of this and is that whenever a store discover a good maker and a store brand gets "famous" all the others will seek the manufacturer who makes it and start buying stuff directly from them, other stores will do that also... infact over here there is the tendency to get a big standardization for what concerns store brands or discount private brands (Eurospin, Penny market, Lidl, Aldi etc).... they're often the same exact stuff...
Esselunga gets their dishweashing powder made by McBride so does Eurospin, LD, Carrefour etc... maybe not the case of McBride who is specialized in detergents for private labels for all the Europe, and is a point of reference in this sense across the continent, but once a medium size manufacturer with their own brand learns/realize to make good stuff and be considered on par with the most expensive stuff and see they start selling alot more than they used to and make new contracts, due to demand-cost law of they will often think to raise the price and what stores will do is send them to hell and go back searching for cheaper ones to mantain the same price they had it sold before..... these people never learn...
World is full of small-medium pretty unknown manufacturers who makes really good stuff and don't sell much as nobody knows them, they have hard times getting "discovered"...we live in a world who is driven by advertisement and fame and where just a name makes a product good or not in our minds... I learned in real world that's not actually so...that's why I like to try them all.

Manufacturers of store brands here change all the times....people just learned not to get affectionated to them...[this post was last edited: 1/21/2015-19:03]

 

[jamiel]

The Reeva DW packets from Aldi are identical to Ajax DW packets...there is a company in Canada which makes all of the "made in Canada" packeted detergents.

 

[gansky1]

It was a top-rated detergent until they removed the phosphates, causing the white spotting and etching as was so typical with all of the early non-phosphated powders following the change.

My mother still buys this GV powder which we then mix with STPP in a Rubbermaid pouring jug with a tight sealing cap. It still gives perfectly fine results in softened water, as before. I recently used up the last of my phosphated Cascade Complete and bought non-phos. powdered Cascade and mixed it in my own jug with STPP. Equally as good of performer all around, just have to mix in the magic. I only do a few loads each week so large box will last four months or so.

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Jamie...
Then it's likely that the makers of the Aldi's Reeva is Phoenix Brands.
While AFAIK liquid detergents from them are Made in USA, powders are Made in Canada.
So I assume PB has a plant up there and likely is the same plant who also make powders and powder sachets for dishwashers, Ajax is a PB brand ....
We have a 90% chance them being a PB product.
I can't think of a company as phoenix brand commisioning that to others, given that anyway the US one is a huge market and it's not like their brands the bottom of the barrel, not that they're TOL but not even BOL....so that's why i think they own the plant in canada.

 

[jamiel]

Actually, I believe Ajax is a shared brand--laundry is the only part of it that's Phoenix...all other products are Colgate-Palmolive. These are C-P. I looked up the manufacturer--it's Korex, Ltd of Etobicoke, ON. It's interesting that they're so blatant on the Korex website about who they work for.

 

[maytagbear]

I've had

fine results with the Ajax dishwasher pacs, and here, they are cheaper than Cascade AND Finish......

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Oh..I thought it was PB for dishwasher detergents also....while hard surface was still CP.
Well, but I should have thought about that since I knew that Ajax powder laundry detergent is still colgate palmolive, while only liquid is PB...[this post was last edited: 1/23/2015-01:52]

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Looks like this Korex works for alot of makers but my understanding is that they only furnish/trade some ingredients, as much brands they mention are Made in USA...

 

[whirlcool]

About a year after they took the phosphates out of the GV DW detergent we found a dollar store with quite a few cases of the phosphated version. We bought about 10 boxes of it at $1 per box. It worked very well and I remember it was a "check rated" value in Consumer Reports. When we went back they were sold out of it.

We tried just one box of the new non phosphated GV detergent. That was enough for us.
It just didn't clean anywhere near as well as the original and did leave heavy spotting on glassware.

Thank goodness they have finally fixed the cleaning/spotting problem for the most part with DW detergents. Our stash of phosphated detergent is just about gone. But still nothing cleaned as good as a good DW detegent with phosphates added at the factory. When you hold a glass, you can feel the difference. The glasses washed in phosphated detergents have a much smoother feel to them.

 

[jamiel]

Nope, have a look at the Colgate-Palmolive website for the US/Canada...shows Ajax hard surface and dish only.

 

[kenmoreguy89]

I don't know...I tell you the powders I got were Colgate palmolive, they do not look so old, the acquisiton AFAIK happened in 2005....I think I could tell if they were 10 years old boxes...
The toss ins , pro pax and liquids are PB.....
I mean, these Ajax boxes can still be found sold around from what I have seen, mostly small shops and such and not just countrywide...never seen these shiney boxes in big distribuiton stores/chains anyway..but they appear from time to time in general stores and dollar shops online..
I can't think they're kind of an old stock or totally discontinued since 10 years, in NYC many corner shops still had these same boxes (where I got mine)...that would mean they sat there for all these years without being touched.. which I don't think it's likely to be..well speaking of old..I managed to find and get a 90s Ajax box that was hidden on the very top shelf of an indian deli/food shop in manhattan toghtere with a Rinso box same age... well but that was a Manhattan indian food shop ...okay...but I could spot the new shiney boxes on shop's windows in Queens and Brooklyn, along with lots of Trend and the New Tide... and I think in the Queens or Brooklyn which are more residential neighborhoods they would have gone in 10 years vs the small indian shop where few would typically shop for laundry products except for a soda, an aspirin or a burger or some indian stuff... and anyway explore the top shelves and cleaners sectionn as me..LOL

The box was like this: http://www.keyfood.com/pd/Ajax/Laundry-Detergent-Classic/22-oz/035000051813/
Here is the boxes I got, you can spot the old one and the new shiney one:
http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?48176[this post was last edited: 1/23/2015-13:18]

 

[jamiel]

You make a good point, though; it doesn't seem like C-P is holding Phoenix Brands to a very strict schedule for changing their packaging. I believe you can still find Fresh Start in C-P packaging around (it isn't very sophisticated detergent based on the MSDS which is still available) but it smells nice.