Laundry liquid or powder ?

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jmurray01

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Feb 9, 2012
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What do you think is better ?

I personally like liquid because in my experience the clothes come out more fragranced and softer, plus there is no drawer cleaning that I hate so much.
 
Well...

Liquid for warm water t-shirts and dress shirts, powder for the rest of the wash, which is hot.

Joe
 
Powders here. I found that liquids just dont seem to clean as well.

Tho these companies are starting to really piss me off! Everytime i go to the store, the liquids seem to encrotch on the space of powders.

Next step, turn them inside-out, where them again and then throw them away.
 
I prefer to take a powder!

To get the equivalent cleaning of Sears Ultra Plus in the orange box...at 10 cents a load, I would have to pay at least double for a liquid.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
We had this discussion a few weeks ago. Liquids can leave a residue on the metal parts of the machine, causing them to rot, particularly the drum support spider. The worst product for this is Ecover laundry liquid. This is often used by people in rural areas on septic tank drainage. If they also have a private water supply that is more acidic than mains water then their machine is doomed!
 
Powder for me

I use Ariel Colour Powder but add an Oxygen Bleach Powder to it when Im doing Whites/Light Items.

Use a Delicate Washing Liquid for delicates and Wool Items.
 
Hot water washes get powder. Warm or cold washes (cold are few and far between), get liquid detergent. Since most of my washes are warm, you can guess what I use the most of, lol..
 
Powder all the way.

The problems with liquids and gels, for me, is that they don't include oxygen bleaching agents and have to compensate for this using optical brighteners. Liquid is fine for colours, but I find biological powders far more hygenic for washing sheets and towels.

I never touch gel. If you poor gel into a bowl of water, the gel will sink to the bottom of the bowl and not dizolve. The same effect happens in your washing machine - the gel clings to the outer tub, heat element and in the internal pipes in the machine. This coupled with low washing temperatures is what causes so many complaints of machines starting to smell.
 
Switch it up

I use both powder and liquid (not in the same wash...although now that I think about it, that could be an experiment), and also use different brands (though I have my favorites).
 
Powder for light coloured laundry and whites, regardless of temperature
Liquid for dark coloured clothing and delicates.

Powder will clean better than any liquid I tried with the difference being the most evident on kitchen and perspiration stains.

Of couse both must have enzymes in them otherwise they're almost useless!
 
Powder all the way these days. We did use liquid detergent for awhile but ended up with a mold/odor problem in our Whirlpool TL machine.
We did try Purex Baby liquid recently. After two washes we filled the washer up with hot water and set it to start agitating with no clothing in it. We ended up with a ton of suds in the empty hot water wash.
It took two cleanings with Cascade to get the water clear again. So back to powders again.
Liquid detergent is just too gummy for us.
 
Have All Three In My Stash

Powders, Gels, and Liquids ...

Each have their own uses and are put into service as required.

Never had problems with the French Ariel "Excell" Gel as mentioned upthread. However one does dose into the special cap and bung that into the washer. By the second or third rinse water is clear and certainly by the fifth so one assumes there isn't residue lurking about somewhere inside the washer.

While liquid detergents in general do not have the alkaline pH of most powders this can be altered if conditions require, such as for better soil and or stain removal (blood for instance). One can either add some STPP, borax, or ammonia to the wash as all will raise the pH of the wash water.

As for stain removal with gels or liquid detergents one simply adds sodium percarbonate (oxygen bleach) in amounts of about 29 or 57 grams (one to two ounces). Unlike sodium perborate which requires alkaline pH levels and temps >60C to really get going, sodium percarbonate supplies it's own alkaline conditions and will start bleaching/sanitising at 40C.
 
I now retract my previous statment...

Bought Tide Ultra HE for the neptune today. After several loads, all I can say is OMG.. It is like having the best of both worlds. It does just as well on colors and brights as liquid, no stiff scratchiness, no little white flecks. And though I always thought my whites looked good, now they look amazing! I gave it a real test, didn't pretreat anything, even the oil and grease stains on white towels and rags from cleaning up after the failed Atlantis. Everything came out. I used bleach with my whites as always, but with the Oxydol powder I was using before, I would have been hard pressed to get those stains out even with Spray and Wash.

Same thing on muddy and grungy lights and brights, everything came out perfect. This just became my new favorite all around detergent.
 
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