Laundry liquid or powder ?

[zanussi_lover]

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.

 

[vintagekitchen]

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..

 

[appnut]

Powder only!!!

 

[aquacycle]

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.

 

[georgect]

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).

 

[jmurray01]

Vern - is that your car in your icon ?

I'm not 100% sure what it is... Chrysler ? Dodge ?

 

[dj-gabriele]

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!

 

[fido]

Ecover

Basically, Ecover is kind to bacteria and mould whereas the less "green" detergents will tend to kill microbes, hence the worry about putting them down septic tanks:

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www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk

 

[whirlcool]

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.

 

[launderess]

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.

 

[vintagekitchen]

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.

 

[spoodles]

"If you pour gel into a bowl of water, the gel will sink

Powder wouldn't dissolve properly either if you dumped a load of it into a bowl of water and just left it sitting there. Gels aren't designed to be used like that, so you can't really claim they're aren't good for that reason.

If gel didn't dissolve your clothes would be covered in the stuff, never mind the inside of the machine and it would've only lasted on the market for about 6 months!

 

[launderess]

Exactly

Quite right.

If one takes a ribbon of toothpaste into a glass of water it will sink to the bottom. However upon agitation of the water the stuff will break up.

IIRC most laundry gels are dispensed via the dosing cap. Once the machine has filled and begun tumbling the contents are discharged into the wash water and laundry. The tumbling action of the machine will force the product out of the cap and mix it into the load. Long as the washing machine is not over loaded and thus the contents free to move there shouldn't be much of a problem.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

I love powder, despite the downsizing of the box in proportion to the ever-increasing price! To me, it seems like it is a lot less harsh to was my daughter's clothes in, (compared to a strong-smelling blue liquid, which reminds me of what I see in the detergent drums at the car wash!) but I hate the way it gets so caked up & wasted because it's hard to break up those clumps, lumps and chunks!

I have a bottle of liquid I use for our stuff (though I use the powder for white--'cause IT'S WHITE!--See?) but either really does do a good job...

-- Dave

 

[matthewza]

I like Purex liquid as I get 104 - 108 washes out of the 96 wash bottle. OMO auto liquid is amazing though! Its awesome on stains but its expensive and in winter a big bottle only lasts 2 weeks so kinda pointless for a family. Powders are just as good and last longer. I put the powder straight into the drum of my TL and FL. X-Pert, OMO handwash and Skip Perfect White are the powders we use. I wash in cold in the TL (except for towels, bedding and whites) and 30 degrees in the FL (except for towels, bedding and whites - 60 degrees)

 

[mayguy]

Powdered all the way.. I've tried liquid Tide a year or so ago, and it had way too my scent! I went back to Tide powered right away!

 

[launderess]

Did Some Wash This Weekend Using "Older' Wisk

From one's stash. This is the version similar if not the same as still sold in the solid red bottles with the older logo/label rather than the new "HE" stuff on shelves today.

Used only about one ounce per load in the Whirlpool portable and things came out quite clean with that lovely vintage Wisk scent. Did add just a bit of Tide "HE" free and clear liquid for two purposes; to cut down suds and add a bit of cleaning kick (enzymes).

In general one does like liquids when using laundromat washers as the cycles are so short don't feel that the powders have time to really get going before the wash water is dumped down the drain.

 

[autowasherfreak]

I normally use liquids, but I'm currently using Roma powder.

 

[danemodsandy]

Powder Person Here

I use powder because - in spite of the politically correct misrepresentations in many ads today - liquids are not good for this planet.

They incorporate two major problems:

1) Their bottles are made of petrochemicals, and please don't talk to me about recycling, because the dirty little secret of recycling is that not all that much actually does get recycled. The idea of recycling works far better as a mechanism for reducing consumer guilt than it does to reduce waste.

2) They contain water, which is heavy and therefore costly to ship, in both the ecological and financial senses. Newer "Ultra" products contain less water than former products, but they still contain water, which means they weigh more than powders.

Give me a powder with almost no water content, shipped and sold in a biodegradable cardboard box made with renewable resources, every time. If our detergent manufacturers were actually as serious about ecology as their ads would have you believe, they would be pushing powders, not liquids.

 

[qsd-dan]

Both!

Kirkland Environmental Friendly liquid soap for cold water (tempered 83F) washes. It's designed for front loaders, but I just use a whole cup of detergent in the 806's instead of 1/4 cup for front loaders. 83F spray and deep rinses.

Kirkland Signature Institutional powdered soap for warm (tempered 120F) and hot (155F) washes. One ounce of STPP in both warm and hot loads. Two ounces of powdered oxy bleach in hot only. 120F spray and deep rinses for both warm and hot loads.

Liquid Tide for greasy/oily loads with two ounces of powdered oxy bleach and two ounces of STPP. Washed at tempered 120F, followed by two 120F spray rinses and one 120F deep rinse.