NEW Arm and Hammer "Essentials" Liquid @ Target!

[oxydolfan1]

"Harnessing The Power of Nature!"

to deliver cleaner, fresher laundry while being better for you and your family, more sensible for the environment.

(from label)....

NEW!! 2X Concentrate..

-Boosted Baking Soda
-Plant Based Soaps
-Naturally Cleaner and Fresher!

-100% Naturally Derived Surfactants
-Biodegradable Plant-Based Soaps
-No Dyes
-No Phosphates or Bleaches
-No Petroleum-Based Cleaners
-Safe for Septic Systems

"The only detergent that combines boosted A & H baking soda with renewable plant-based soaps to deliver powerful cleaning and fresher clothes."

"Plant-based and dye-free formula rinses away thoroughly, leaving virtually no residue, so it's non-irritating to skin and gentle to fabrics."

"2x concentrated formula results in less packaging, so it's easier to carry and store, and less wasteful for the environment."

Ingredients INCLUDE: Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, a combination of naturally dervied cleaning agents (conconut and/or palm based surfactants, Natural Water Softener, Water.

 

[oxydolfan1]

Okay, this is interesting.

The first recent roll-out of an American-branded detergent that directly targets the environmentally conscious consumer (it is a clear liquid packaged in a kelly-green translucent bottle).

It has a very subtle "mountain fresh" fragrance.

It is priced here at $3.39, same as the other new A&H 2X formulas in the opaque gold bottles.

There are absolutely no claims, references, or directives to HE machines or low-sudsing properties anywhere on the label.

I'll be testing this sometime between now and Friday (I have no more dirty clothes to wash!) and I'd LIKE this to be an effective product....

Any comments about the company's claims regarding the specific ingredients mentioned would be welcomed, as I'm not knowledgeable about how such compositions actually work against soil and greasy stains on laundry...

Thanks!

 

[brettsomers]

SOAP based?

 

[oxydolfan1]

Yes, "coconut or palm-based", according to the label.

It's not on their laundry website, but the product is mentioned in the investor relations page as an early fourth-quarter rollout.

 

[zipdang]

Oxydolfan1, I'm anxious to hear what you think of this product once you've tested it. I've seen it in our Target stores but resisted the temptation to try it. I hate to admit this, but I was turned off of A&H detergents a few years ago when I bought a box of their powdered detergent with bleach and soon after noticed it smelled exactly like the A&H kitty litter I'd been buying for my cat. Nothing could be less appealing than having my detergent smell like my cat's sandbox. Hopefully they've changed the formulations since then, but still, the association lingers.

 

[brettsomers]

i beat you to it, Oxy! i couldnt resist getting a bottle of it at walmart this evening. the implication that its soap-based had me really curious. it sure ACTS like a conventional detergent. the fragrance is wonderful, kinda sweet and green. it seemed a bit sudsy to me. and its chock full of optical brighteners, made my fingers glow!

 

[tomturbomatic]

Dollars to doughnuts the Natural Water Softener is washing soda. Don't be shocked about this laundry cleaning agent being soap based. Early detergents were called syndets because the cleaning action of soap makes it a detergent; it's just not a "built" detergent, meaning with its own water conditioners. Synthetic detergents also did not depend on using fats as a base, like soap. That is why finding a way to make cleaners that did not use fats was a big part of war research. The things that make soap work, one end of the molecule is hungry for water and the other is hungry for fats, are the same that make detergent work. This new product uses natural soap based cleaning agents, which is why it is so sudsy, along with the water conditioning agents that prevent the soap from forming scum, soap curd and leaving a dulling film. Putting the water conditioners in with the soap is a pretty smart idea and almost insures that the correct amount of water conditioner will be used with the detergent. Most people doing laundry today do not know about having to "break" the water by adding alkaline conditioners until the water feels slippery, then adding the soap. The instructions for the Bendix Automatic Home Laundry include this procedure and it was used for a long time, might still be in some places, in commercial laundering. Otherwise, most people who had to use soap to wash clothes and dishes are either no longer with us or just barely with us.

Do the instructions or hype on the bottle mention anything about it leaving the clothes soft without using fabric softener? That's one reason mild, less alkaline soap was used for baby laundry. Before fabric softeners, it left clothes softer than if they were washed in detergent or even harsh lye soap.

 

[mrboilwash]

Soap based

Natural soap has been a common ingredient in detergents in Europe for decades. Even in all current P&G products.
Along with the right amount of surfactants (syndets) and watersofteners it won`t leave any scum and rinse out well.
Along with softeners alone it wouldn`t work because you would have to soften the rinse water, too. But with modern surfactants it is OK.
In the right combination, soap can keep the suds in a tumble machine under control. Try some grated Ivory instead of Fabricsoftener as a sudskiller, added to the washsolution.

 

[peterh770]

I thought soap was used in European detergents (Eurodets?) as a suds suppressant.

 

[mrboilwash]

That is exactly what I meant. And it has been in use here long before the green wave of the late 1980s

 

[Cybrvanr]

This sounds like a great product for an aspie like me! I can't stand stinky soaps that leave residue in my clothes. I've been using the A&H free stuff for a good while. This stuff sounds to be even better. Brett, you say the stuff is filled with brighteners? The A&H free isn't, so I wonder if it will be any better or worse as far as what the clothing feels like after a wash? I've tried to avoid dyes too becasue they seem to make clothing fade faster

 

[launderess]

*Sigh*

Have been extolling the virtues of using soap for foam control for ages now. Persil states rignt on the box it contains "natural soap".

Use grated Fels or Savon de Marsielle for suds control and or to use along with detergent (and a dash of STPP), for a "soap wash" when doing linens and such. Doux makes a lavender scented laundry liquid which is based on Savon de Marsielle as well.

Yes, the trick is to make sure to use enough detergent or "break" before adding soap to make sure the hard water minerals are bound before the soap hits the water, this takes care of soap forming scum. For suds control just adding a pinch or so of soap along with the detergent is fine.

Believe the trick for suds control is the use of what are called "long chained" soaps.

L.

 

[brettsomers]

brighteners, yes. glowed on my fingers and when being poured. i used the *medium* measurement in my small washer, three towels and some t-shirts. the first deep rinse was quite sudsy, maybe cause of the towels.

 

[launderess]

Without bleaches, the OBAs are there to give the "whiter than white" effect. So your laundry may not exactly come out very "clean", but will glow white so you will think it otherwise.

L.

 

[oxydolfan1]

Okay, I used it on a large load of light colors, workout stuff, towels, moderate stains, lukewarm water, full cap.

Observations:

All stains easily came out.

It has a really nice, mild fragrance (kind of like aloe), much milder than even other value brands.

It sudses up a bit more than I would have liked, more than the regular Arm & Hammer but not excessively....I will use less in the future.

The suds are PURPLE. Not white, not bluish. Faint purple.
I agree that there's a lot of OBAs in this formula.

It softens somewhat more on its' own than other liquids (I skipped the softener just for the purposes of the test, and because I do that sometimes). However, if you're used to "Downy Fresh Softness", it's not gonna be enough for you on your jeans, thick socks, etc.

I like it....definitely more than regular A&H, All, and Purex liquids, but I still think you need to keep a bottle of Wisk or a box of CW Tide/Cheer Complete/Sears With Bleach or whatever it is you wash hardcore filthies with....

Also, significantly, there are no references to HE machines or instructions on the label and it is not low-sudsing enough to IMHO be suitable for these machines (this is one of those detergents where you'd have to lower the dosage so substantially to control the suds that you'd lose the necessary cleaning power)....

But the clothes, towels, etc. SMELL fresh, not perfumy.

That's important for a lot of people.

 

[launderess]

When detergents say "bleach alternative", they are also usually loaded up with OBAs to give a brilliant white effect.

You see this allot with liquid detergents as it is very hard to combine oxygen bleach into a stable formula in anything other than powder detergents. Even hydrogen peroxide liquid bleach will loose effectivness over time unless stablisers are added.

L.

 

[launderess]

Laundry Soap with Built In Water Softener

Been there and done that!

Vintage Fels soap contained amoung other things washing soda, glycerin,whitening/bluing agents and a few other ingredients one would expect to only find in a "detergent".

L.

 

[sudsmaster]

OBA's are dyes...

Since optical brighteners are basically flourescent dyes, I would think that any product that is labeled "dye-free" should not contain OBA's.

I've been using a "plant based" detergent called Ecos for several years now. It has a nice herbal scent from lavender and rosemary, and says it has a natural fabric softener, but I didn't notice that it left bath towels much softer than modern liquids.

The natural water softener is most likely sodium citrate - a slightly modified product of citrus.

Adding washing soda to a natural soap will pretty much negate how mild it may be. Washing soda is quite alkaline. STPP is much less alkaline/more gentle. Sodium bicarb (baking soda) would be even less alkaline, but it's not much of a water softener.

PS-A good way to clean copper is to dip a quarter of a fresh lemon or lime into salt, and then rub the copper with it. Can't get much more natural than that.

 

[mrboilwash]

OBAs

A few years ago I have seen a critical report about OBAs on TV. They said the OBAs used in detergents, paper or fabrics were mainly so called Stilbenes and act like hormones !
Quite scary, isn`t it ? They also said that in the 1960s stilbenes have been prescribed to women for certain women`s diseases. All their daughters, born after the treatment developed a certain type of cancer while puberty.
The amounts absorbed by the skin may be very small, but still controversial.
Has this ever been a suject in the US media ?