Liquid Detergent V Powder Detergent

[mark1973]

Hi Guys

I have always been a powder / Tablets guy but recently ive been starting to buy different liquid detergents and especially the x2 concentrated ones.

Now I know powders contain bleach which is always good for whites and for the machine as it helps keep it fresh.

Ive heard that liquids can damage the drum spider.

What im wanting to know is that do liquids clean as well as powders? Ive heard that liquids get some types of stains out better than powders?

Also..Do liquids really damage the machine? I know that if you use liquid and use constant low temperatures you end up with mould and nasty smells. I still use 60c when using liqids so im sure that would be ok but do they damage the spider?

I don't want to use liquids in a vintage machine if it's going to do it damage and also not clean aswell as powder.

Thanks for any input.

Mark
x

 

[mark1973]

Forgot to say, apoligies if this subject has been done before but I don't remember reading it.

Mark
x

 

[yogitunes]

powders seem to be more powerful, liquids disolve easier especially in cold water, but you need something powerful like Tide liquid, that has guaranteed results, a little more expensive, but you can use less, than a bargain brand, and know it gonna work....but liquid with bleach and powder with bleach don't seem to do the same job, the powder seems more powerful, but everyone can have different results and opinions,I use boh depending on the conditions....

as for damage to the machine, never heard of it, and chlorine bleach seems to be the only thing that keeps the machine fresh and sanitized, outside of these new tablet cleaners, and if you do a load a week of whites and let the machine dry out after a load, you shouldn't have any issues with mold and odors....

 

[mattywashboy]

i alternate between powder and liquid mostly. For whites, towels and sheets, i use a good dose of Radiant high performance powder (or Dynamo, depending on whats around at the time) on a 60* wash (or hot in a top loader) and that always gets good results. For colours i tend to use liquids. Omo at one time brought out a Quickwash liquid which was clear and smelt like persil liquid in the uk, quite different from other Omo liquids. It did a great job and didn't fade colours (which are normally washed on 30* for liqht soiled t-shirts and pants, or 40* for jeans and more soiled shirts etc..). On the other hand, liquids such as Cold Power and Dynamo all perform wonderfully on the whites at 60* although they tend to suds up a lot more so i prefer the powder. Basically i use both in my regular laundry routine so they are both good enough for me

 

[seamusuk]

My Opinion..

Hey Guys

Defiantly a bleach containing powder/tablets and 60deg for whites- also no softener with towels which tend to be in all my white loads as all my towels are white or very light cream. I like Bold as it has the softener but dosent affect absorbency. Having said that all my towels go in a dryer which helps a lot with softness as well .

Other than that I use both Colour powders and liquids/gels. As a general rule for cycles under a hour liquids and for longer ones tablets/powder.

Regarding corrosion and liquids yes it can be a problem withh exclusive use of <40deg washes , but if you are doing regular hot loads and / or maintance washes it shouldnt be a problem

Seamus

 

[seamusuk]

One thing liquids ARE defiantly better for...

Would be fatty stains- cooking oil etc, not only can you pretreat but the ingredients are more effective than powder on fat .
Seamus

 

[mark1973]

Thanks for your comments so far guys

Hey Matty..(Mark Waves at Matt)..x

Seamus thanks for the info about the fatty stains. Im very bad at spilling my dinner down me and I really should wear a bib so hopefully I will have better luck at getting those stains out.

Mark
x

 

[ricky5050]

thanks Mark

i wondered that too

I use new Aeriel excel color liquid ( which is great at cleaning on dark colors which i have to wash on warm) but i went back to aeriel white tablets for my whites on a hot wash as i noticed although towels looked clean on the surface , holding up to the light they looked a bit grubby (off drying hands etc) in the centre from using excel whites gel and warm washes.

i know aeriel is spelled wrong but not going to kitchen to copy bottle!!
Richard

 

[rolls_rapide]

Powders all the way

They have all the components built in, especially bleach.

Have a read of this page:

http://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=114

 

[chrisbsuk]

....I must admit, I have recently changed from poweder to liquid and you can clearly see the difference on my white items - e.g. work shirts, my towels & my bed linen; its all "off white" if that makes much sense? I guess thats because the liquid has no bleach in it. Going forward, i will use liquid for my colourded stuff (expensive jeans/t-shirts etc) and keep with the powder (and a 60*C wash!) for all my white items.

 

[westingman123]

Well, at the risk of being totally out of sync, I use both powder and liquid; BUT I continue to use fels naptha bar soap
in my whites. It seems to negate any need for liquid bleach, my whites are white and my machines smell nice.

 

[launderess]

Well, Liza M. has issued a statement, one wonders how Miss. Diana Ross is taking the news.

As for persons being catty and such: well if Mr. Jackson had just been any other famous entertainer or merely "famous" (whatever that means in today's world), his sudden death would have been news enough. However in a sad but ironic way the man's demise adds yet another strange twist to a life steeped in scandal, muck and, well "strangeness".

Perhaps in some small way Mr. Jackson will now join the other immortals such as Marilyn Monroe and others whose early (and some would say suspicous) deaths pushed the more scandalous parts of their lives towards the rear and firmly seated them as one of the greats. Mr. Jackson's record sales and such were in the tank until yesterday, now try and purchase anything at formerly give away prices.

Sadly what will happen is perhaps more of the nasty truth about Mr.Jackson's personal life will out. Already one family who was paid 15 million dollars by Mr. Jackson to hush up something that went on between the man and their son,now feels the death of the former frees them from any previous legal agreements to keep quiet. You can bet they won't be the last.

L.

 

[launderess]

Error!

Right post, wrong thread.

Disregard.

 

[ronhic]

Liquids V's Powders....

Choice, our consumer magazine has only recently started to publish data about liquids again. For many years it didn't test them, but has since changed this stance.

Their findings are that the best performing liquids, tested to the same standard as the powders did this:

Top Loader liquids

Top 2 liquids removed 69/70% of the dirt
Top 2 powders removed 83/84% of the dirt....

Front Loader liquids

Top 2 liquids removed 72/74% of dirt
Top 2 powders removed 85/85% of dirt

Differences of about 6% are visible with the naked eye....

For me, it is a no brainer...I have never been a fan of liquids in any format and have always had great results without resorting to additional major additives such as bleach...plus our front load machines don't have dispensers for it in this country....which does make it much more challenging if I did want to use it...

Oh, the results of these tests do differ from the standards in one way...they are conducted in a controlled cold water (20c) wash. The majority of Australians now wash in tap cold water...

I wonder if this is why all the laundry detergents are now starting to smell so strong?

 

[paulc]

Mark

I have recently gone back to powder after using liquid exclusively for a couple of months. My whites always looked white but I was quite shocked the when I took the 1st load of white towels out the machine washed with powder. They just looked a lot cleaner. When using liquid I did use a scoop of powdered stain remover like oxyclean every few washes but powder definately washes better. I still use liquid for darks but give jeans a wash in powder every now and again to give them a really deep clean.

 

[newwave1]

I love liquid detergents. I have to say i use both though. Towels, sheets and whites generally get hot washes with powder, & colours get liquid. I like liquid for its rinsing. As i'm very picky about it. I find great results with both!

Darren

 

[rolls_rapide]

I found that liquids are useless on cooler washes where shirt armpits are involved!

'His Nibs' also commented that his shirts weren't smelling fresh. So, back to powder it was.

I really don't care if the colours fade on clothes over time. I would rather have fresh, clean, faded clothes, than unfaded mingin' clothes any day.

Anyway, most of today's clothes seem to be designed to fade as soon as you look at them. Whatever happened to colourfast dyes?

 

[jeffg]

A lot has to do with the machine, not just the detergent.

With most residential front loaders it's best to stick with powdered detergents.

 

[superelectronic]

One product does NOT do all

Whilst our Mothers might have soldiered on with that big box of soap power, and Grandma made do with soap and soda in the copper, we're just going to have to fact facts here and admit that in today's curiously specialised age, no one product will cover all needs if you're even half way to being serious about clothes care.

The bext thing you can do to keep your togs looking lovely is......nothing at all. For, as we all know, once you've shown fabric to the water, it will never look or feel the same as when you bought it. Of course, this is a highly impractical notion unless one happens to be super wealthy or a hip-hop musician hell bent on everything being "box fresh". So here's what you do: go to the shops and get standard non-colour powder or tablets for your whites. Then pick up something else designed for colours - liquid OR powder. My experience has been that liquid is better for colours because even the premium brands seem to leave a bit of powdery residue that becomes apparent after drying.

As long as one is doing a regular hot wash with powder I'm confident using liquid in other washes will have little ill effect on the machine.

Liquid on whites is almost exclusively a non-event, I've found, unless you add a scoop of oxygen bleach...and that just doubles the price of washing. I suppose the only time it might be a winner is if you don't want the zeolite content of powder on your whites affecting the end result - I've heard it can have negative effects on ironing results making whites less so...I also recall reading that cheaper powders contain waxy fillers that can yellow whites when ironed.

Of course, laundry is a very personal business and only you know what you will countenance in the clothes care line. The experts do seem to recommend traditional powder for optimum machine care, but that's not the only factor. As long as one practices good washer hygiene, I daresay you can do what you damn well want!

That's my input anyway.

Alex

 

[brisnat81]

I wash everything in Drive Front Loader x 2 Concentrate.

I tried the Omomatic S&M colour and found that it wasnt shifting stains off my T shirts and the under arms in shirts started to smell.

I've switched back to the Oxygen Bleach full, high performing Drive Powder and get minimal fading and great results on a 40-60deg 1 hour cycle.

Powders always here

 

[ronhic]

Thought I might just add on here, that I have tried a bit of an experiment of late.

Our grandparents, and possibly our mothers, used washing soda to assist with getting clothes clean...

Well, I have tried it with 'Lectric' soda (in Oz) with 4 detergents (Old 'Classic' Omomatic [full cup formula about 10yrs old], Drivematic, surfmatic and BioZet) and can confirm that....

- you need less powder...about 1/3 less
- clothes appear to rinse better
- reduced need for pre-treating
- dry softer

I think it is a winner to be honest.....

 

[MrX]

I suspect that the main reason that some manufacturers are pushing liquids so hard is that I suspect that they are much cheaper to manufacture.

Have a look at the ingredients of a typical TOL liquid and a typical TOL powder. You will see that the powder has significantly more ingredients.

Also, powders are by nature harder to process and handle as you can't just pump them around.

From a consumer's perspective, powders seem to give far superior results, and if you're using a front loader they're much easier to dose than liquids as that's what the dispenser drawer has evolved to do over the decades.

Liquids also make it much more difficult to add fancy functions like delayed starts / prewash etc.

I've occasionally tried liquids and I always end up going back to powders again. They're just way better.

Also good powders like Ariel, Bold, Persil, Surf etc all dissolve very very easily.

Liquids might have a little bit of an advantage in the 15 min (total cycle time) quickwash as they get into action a bit faster and the wash only lasts about 5 mins.

 

[zanussi_lover]

I just use Surf/Daz Powder on everything

Been using Surf tropical Tablets on the whites, and they dissolve in a few seconds and clean brilliantly at 40, though haven't tried the new in drawer surf tabs. I hope the new ones haven't been altered so much that they sacrifice cleaning performance.

and occasionally Surf Small and mighty - Tempting nature and rainflower on my dark stuff or stuff that just needs a quick freshen up.

Also use this on my sheets as i like the smell and i've noticed i don't need to add conditioner either, as it makes things slightly softer.

I'd rather buy these as these are good budget brands which do a good job without charging the earth. as i don't want to spend loads on getting good results.

 

[superelectronic]

Be careful if you use soda...

To Ronhic and anyone else wishing to live the soda dream, a spot of advice: be careful using it on darks! Whilst it may or may not cause fading (my Mum who, at 72, is of an age to recall soap and soda being the only products in the washday aresenal, maintains soda is terrible for making colours run), I have found it leaves white deposits on dark garments...currently I am sporting navy blue pants (undies) that have had soda in the wash (I wanted to pep up some Ecover delicate liquid) and it looks like I spend a lot of time with my hand inside, if you see what I mean!

This is true of both washing soda and the el-cheapo water softener (not Calgon - but I haven't got that much money to burn so can't comment) and I now remember having the problem about 10 years ago with water softener derived from soda. The other issue to watch is the thin film that can form on the stainless steel drum and discolour it when using washing soda. That thin crust takes a few washes with normal detergent to disappear. Don't forget Grandma's copper was a darn site easier to inspect and maintain the the insides of a modern automatic washer!

Just wanted to pass on my experience. Don't let it put you off altogether!

Ta ta

 

[ronhic]

Thanks Alex...

...it hasn't put me off...

I am not using bucket loads of the stuff. Probably about 1-2 tablespoons only. It says to use a cupfull, but that is for a top loader....and given the difference in water consumption, is certainly not needed here....

I'll keep my eyes peeled for any deposits on both clothes and drum....