Laundry detergents in Mauritius

[aquacycle]

Hi folks,

We're on holiday in Mauritius at the moment. Staying with my in laws. We had a trip to InterMart supermarket so I got some snaps of laundry detergents.

Detergents are a fairly new thing here. Traditionally, people bought huge bars of laundry soap and grated it or cut chunks off to either rub directly onto the clothes or dissolve into a liquid soap - a method which my partners 98 year old grandmother still uses. Nowadays they're more used for pretreating and stain removal.

I'll try and get some snaps of the bars when we next go shopping, but they're very cheap. A big bar was about 70 rupees, which is about £1.10.

Theres no such thing as non bio or colour detergent here. HE top loaders and front loaders are both popular. Liquids are marketed towards TL's and powders for front loaders.

Another thing I noticed was that detergents & softeners don't smell near as strong as they do in the UK. Good for me though, I hate detergents that stink.

 

[aquacycle]

As promised, the big bars of soap

 

[dixan]

A lot of French detergents and - oh my God - Bulgarian detergent. I can't believe it! Picture 4, third row from the top - Savex is made in Bulgaria. Funny.

 

[aquacycle]

Oh I wondered where Savex was from. I know Dejan has it in Serbia but I don't think he rates it very highly.

That makes sense that the French detergents are popular as French is the most spoken language here, along with Creole.

My partners Mum uses Ariel powder and Soupline softener when she's here.

 

[dixan]

"I know Dejan has it in Serbia but I don't think he rates it very highly."

Yes, they export it there. I've never read anyone mention or rate it. That's normal, because it's rubbish, but at the same time it's very popular (market leader for two years), because it's cheap and it smells very strong.

I really like to see detergent aisles in different countries. Especially small markets are very exotic.
I see Apta. This is own brand of chain of French supermarkets - Intermarché.
I think Ariel and OMO are the same as the ones in South Africa.
Bonux... I wonder if it is the same as the one here - BOL brand form P&G. The package is the same.
They have Dr. Beckmann stain removers.
But soaps... I've never seen so many laundry soaps in one place.

 

[grwasher_expert]

Interesting....

Do they have american style(top loaders with agitator, no internal heating element) or european style washers(front-loaders more popular, internal heating element, centigrade temperature setting)?

 

[aquacycle]

Toploaders/frontloaders

The market is fairly evenly split between front loaders and HE top loaders. I haven't seen any US style TL's with the agitator up the middle, only HE TL's from the likes of LG, Haier, Samsung, Hitachi and Siemens. Bosch & Miele front loaders are available but very high end.

Vestel sell machines here under the Ocean and Sharp brands, with Sharp being the higher end.

Candy are popular, though their entry level machines are badged as Pacific and high end are Candy. No Hoover branding on washing machines.

I haven't seen one tumble dryer since I got here, though they are available

 

[mich]

How Cool!!! Thanks for posting.