How good are the Mexican detergents?

[whitekingd]

I have never tried Roma or Foca. Are they worth trying? Do they suds much? I have a 1967 Kenmore wringer washer that tends to build suds fairly easily. What do you folks recommend in that machine? Also, does anyone out there still use Mrs. Stewart's Liquid Bluing? I swear by it! I really think it works great! Any comments are appreaciated. And, what ever happened to White Kind D? When my grandmother had money she bought Tide. When she was poor, she bought White Kind D. I haven't seen it for several years. What happened?

 

[volvoguy87]

Bluing and mexican detergents.

Some Mexican detergent, a little bluing, and a wringer is a recipe for some very white laundry. The reason why so many Mexican detergents work so well is because they contain phosphates (STPP, TSP, Trisodium Phosphate, Trisodiumpolyphosphate). Phosphates are one of the best cleaning agents around. They are often imitated but never duplicated. Phosphates are no longer allowed in domestic detergents (don't tell anyone, we don't want the Mexican stuff banned).

Phosphates were banned because they are a nutrient. When phosphates get into a body of water, there can be an algae bloom. and the other plants and animals die. Strangely, phosphates are a primary ingredient in agricultural fertilizers. Farm runoff has way more phosphates than laundry sewage, yet which application of phosphates was banned?

Because of the optical brighteners, I tend to use Mexican detergent on my whites. I prefer Cheer for my colors. I need to order some STPP to improve the performance of my non-Mexican laundry detergents.

Mrs. Stewart's Bluing is available and I use it. It is not very forgiving, however. My mother has a GE Adora front-loader which is the worst for bluing. I put the bluing in the fabric softener compartment and with 1 drop, it spotted an entire load. Now I only use bluing in my Maytag A208.

Mexican detergents are cheap, effective, and fun!
Dave

 

[danemodsandy]

Dave:

"Phosphates are no longer allowed in domestic detergents (don't tell anyone, we don't want the Mexican stuff banned)."

Here in Cobb County, GA, someone's on a tear about banned detergents; they're disappearing from all the bargain stores. I asked my Dollar General manager what was going on, and she told me, "We can't sell that stuff no more- the area office told us to pull it." She didn't have any more info, or didn't want to tell me more.

 

[MikeS]

99 Cent Ariel

After reading all the posts about Mexican-made detergents, I was determined to get some. Last weekend, at my local 99 Cent Only Store, I found 500 gram bags of Ariel Oxi Azul for just (of course) 99 cents each. I bought several bags and transfered one to a zipper lock container. Then, following directions the best I could (they were in Spanish) I added the equivilent of one scoop into my trusty Roper and did my whites (hot water, regular cycle, no chlorine bleach). I was amazed! Those little phosphates really made my socks and unmentionables whiter than white! And although the odor was strong, the Purex fabric softner with Renuzit cancelled out much of it, leaving a fresh scent when I took my clothes out of the dryer.
Thanks for the tip, everyone. And now, back to the 99 cent store for some more Ariel while it lasts....!

 

[~sudsshane]

I love Foca and Blanca Nieves. They work very well on my white laundry and are low sudsing in my LG front load machine.
Foca and Blanca Nieves have a very pleasant, nice scent, unlike Ariel Oxy Azul Max. I would definately recommend them both.
I wish I could find Viva, I have heard good things about that detergent.

 

[sudsmaster]

There is no nation-wide ban on phosphated laundry detergents. Any bans are done on a local - city, county, state - basis. Basically areas around large bodies of still water, like the Great Lakes, New England, the Southeast, etc, have these bans. The arid Southwestern states, like California and Nevada, have no statewide bans (there may be restrictions in areas like Lake Tahoe, though). Out here, the main water pollutant of concern is nitrogen, not phosphorus.

Agricultural runoff is not the only source of phosphates. Humans excrete more phosphates on a daily basis than their washers would if, say, the detergents contained 8% phosphorus (about 30% STPP to detergent). Secondary and tertiary sewage treatment removes much of the phosphorus. Phosphates however tend not to be in run-off because they bind tightly with soil minerals and stay put. It's direct dumping of inadequately treated municipal sewage into ponds and lakes that can cause algal growth (but only when there is sufficient nitrogen already in the water). Muddy, turbid runoff of course might contain soil-bound phosphates.

TSP is typically not added to laundry detergents because it's not much better than cheaper washing soda. STPP is the form that is most effective, because it doesn't form a cement like precipitate on fabrics and on washer parts.

Until recently my favorite Mexican laundry detergent was Ariel. But I've noticed that in the past year, STPP has disappeared from the ingredient listing. So maybe P&G decided to pull it from the Mexican product sold in the USA, so it could be sold nation-wide instead of just in the Southwest.

 

[launderess]

Last time I checked P&G's Mexican Ariel wasn't supposed to be in the United States at all. That was the rationale behind the launch of the American version (without phosphates).

What may be happening is P&G is tired of trying to stop the Mexican stuff from being sold up north, and even more tired of tree-hugger threats of lawsuits and such, they are taking removing phosphates from the Mexican versions as well. It's not like P&G doesn't know how to make phosphate free detergents that work well, even in hard water; but phosphates are cheap and make formulating a low cost detergent quite simple.

Have to look at the detergent asile of K-Sears next time am down that way and see if any of the Mexican detergents are still there. New York State is cracking down on STPP for even commercial use, and always wondered why the stuff was there in the first place.

L.

 

[sudsmaster]

Laundress,

For a while a couple of years ago, I was seeing boxed versions of Ariel, phosphate-free, in major stores. Never tried the stuff, as I figured it was basically regular Tide with maybe some extra fragrance thrown in.

You poor New Yorkers. First you weren't allowed to have garbage disposals, getting a washer into most apartments requires cloak and dagger subterfuge, and now even your commercial laundries are facing a phosphate free future.

STPP isn't all that cheap. It's considerably more expensive than washing soda, because it takes some energy input and chemical processing to turn a ortho phosphate into a complex phosphate. All this adds to the cost. What makes a phosphated detergent perhaps less expensive than a detergent formulated to be as effective without phosphates, is all the other advanced chemistry that must go into the phosphate-free detergent to make it work anywhere near as good as the phosphated version. While I think Persil is very good, I suspect that for really filthly laundry, adding an ounce or two of STPP will turn a run of the mill HE detergent into a Persil topper.

One of these days, I'll have to try that. Although my filthy work clothes days are quick coming to an end. I'm switching to a much cleaner job (same field, just more high tech and mcuh more clean). Can't say I'll miss it much if at all. Won't miss the unheated shop in the dead of winter, ice cold hands, boiling hot in the summer, and permanent co-worker who periodically forgets (or refuses) to bathe properly and refuses to admit it :-(