Objective laundy test!

[dj-gabriele]

All right!

@thomasortega

The rags were washed with a FULL load, 5 kg of laundry for a 5 kg machine.
As I always do I never underload or overload the machine. Otherwise you're playing the waste-game.

@combo52
I know that if I had pretreated the stains they would have come clean the first time but as I said, I don't pretreat and the test was to show how better stuff come clean with higher temperatures without using additives.
It also must be noted that both rags came clean the second time (even the oily stains) as they were re-washed with 60°C water and all the load was less soiled. Of course the rags were washed with mixed kitchen stuff what was very dirty but I didn't bother to pretreat the stains, so that hindered the results. If I had washed the rags in "normally dirty" laundry the 60°C wash would have been spotless. Proof next time I'm going to wash some "normal" whites.

@pierreandreply4

The point of having a (front loading) washing machine is to start it and get clean laundry, not soaking, pre-treating, using additives, pre-washes... and the machine manages to give you that 99% of the time if used properly. No additives, no elbow grease, just a dose of detergent.

@thomasortega again
I can't wash in tap cold as my machine auto heats at least to 30°C.
And besides, I'll stick to my routine of at least 40°C washing as the results speak for themselves! And those were fresh stains of only a day! Go figure if they were older!

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens to mud and dirt and vegetable stains as I went hiking for the day yesterday...

 

[gorenje]

Hi,

here is the Test I made.
First I would like to apologize for these pictures of nasty pieces of laundry, but I gathered on purpose the dirtiest rags from all around. Some others things was so dirty I was ashamed to show it.
I repeat, this was made on purpose, because I wanted to do a test on something really dirty.
This was mainly a load of kitchen cloths, table cloths, kitchen towels and lot of rags. All extremely dirty. In addition to all this stuff I'added also one "Test Rag" stained with different stains.
The stains was 7 days old, because I made the rag one week ago when this thread was created, but then I changed my mind and I've decide not to participate in this experiment. Yesterday I've changed my mind again since I had a lot of time but also a lot of dirty clothes to wash, so I told myself to try the experiment.

So here it goes:

7 days old stained dirty load
Very large load (I would say too much in regard to the soil level)
Washed on the "whites" cycle - prewash and 95°C main wash with only detergent and nothing else.
Detergent used: italian Dixan

Ingemar

 

[gorenje]

other stained items

pic. 2

 

[gorenje]

pic. 3

 

[gorenje]

pic. 4

 

[gorenje]

pic. 5

 

[gorenje]

pic. 6

 

[gorenje]

and here are the results

the full bucket

 

[gorenje]

the rag from pic. 1

this is the "Test Rag" from pic. # 1

 

[gorenje]

pic. 2

the kitchen cloth from pic. # 2

as you can see the oily ragu stain on the right side is still visible, the other two from the middle and the lower left side are gone, along with the rest of the dirtiness

 

[gorenje]

the kitchen cloth from pic. # 3 & 4

 

[gorenje]

table cloth from pic. # 5

 

[gorenje]

grrrrrrrrr

the rag from pic. # 6 was really disgusting!

here is the "after" pic. of the same rag

 

[mattl]

My cousin is Part of Amway's European division, she flies back and forth almost bi-weekly and she gets me the SA8 prewash spray treatment.  It is aerosol based and will get just about any oil based stain out.  She said they were reintroducing it back tho this country, but the last can she got me was all in Cyrillic

 

[gorenje]

Hi Matt,
if I have a hard oily stain to deal with it I usualy pretreat with a laundry bar soap which is very effective but in this case I didn't because I wanted to use only a dose of detergent.

But from my experience and here most of the Italian friends would agree, the most hard to remove stain is an oily stain of home made ragu' sauce, because it is a combination of concentrated tomato and oil. (both hard to remove)

I have also heard that the aerosol prewash spray is good for this kind of stains.

(if you need some help with the translation I'm able to read Cyrillic)

Ingemar

 

[mark_wpduet]

I use spray n wash for an oily stain. It usually works

I also heard that you can put a little dawn dish liquid on an oily stain before washing and it will remove it which makes sense because (Dawn takes grease OUT of your way!)

I've never tried the DAWN thing though

 

[mattl]

Ingemar, thanks for the offer.  I've been using the same product for a few years so I'm pretty familiar with it.  Just out of curiosity are you at all familiar with the Amway products?  My cousin says many of them are quite popular in Russia and some of the former Soviet countries, especially the oven cleaners.  The prewash is  the only Amway product I use.

 

[gorenje]

I have first seen the Amway products towards the and of the 80's - beginning of the 90's when my grandmother and my mother was buying some household cleaners from a lady in Italy. Then Golden products became very popular here in Slovenia so they began to buy the Super 10 cleaner from their product line. The only thing I've used from the Amway line is the GLISTER toothpaste which I have to say was very good. Here in Slovenia we have quite all of those "direct selling" Companies (Amway, Golden, Avon, Just, Forever Living Products etc. etc.) but sincerely I am using my favorite brands available in regular stores.
But I was wondering already long ago how it performs the Amway laundry detergent.

 

[dj-gabriele]

@Ingemar

Dixan is one of my favourite detergents, too bad for the strong smell! That's why I use AVA most of the time... and let's not mention Dash! I bought a 52 (or was it 56?) loads box last time it was on sale and it took me forever to finis it as I couldn't tolerate the lingering smell of detergent in the clothes. I only used it for curtains and carpets. Not even rags.

Yup, I second that ragu (the real one, made with tomato concentrate and not sauce) is among the worst laundry offenders! But hopefully the trick is to expose the wet laundry to sunlight for an hour ( more if it's cloudy) and the stain magically goes away! Ah, the powers of UV rays

Any other that wants to stain something for our pleasure?
Soon I'll post some other stain test (dirt, mud, grass) but not before I get back my laptop from the repairman!
And BTW, my crap Whirlpool machine broke again and today came the technician... the pump had burned down... this makes the 4th fault in 3 years I have the machine... 2 complete tub replacement, programmer and now, pump.
Plus he told me than now ALL the whirlpool machines have welded tubs (even the fancier ones)! There's no need to say I will never buy one ever!

 

[gorenje]

Ciao Gabriele

Yes I also like Dixan or our Persil (wich is quite the same thing).
I also like AVA, because it is indeed a good detergent.
Years ago I was using Dash and I liked it especially because of the cleaning and whitening ability but then I've stoped using it because some of my whites turned blue because of too much bluing in it.
Altro che "Piu bianco non si puo!" ma "Piu blu non si puo!"
I was sad because I always liked the italian Dash despite the fact that it has a really strong scent. Our "Slovenian" Ariel is perhaps even more scented.

I didn't know for this trick to expose the stain to the Sun, but it make sense for sure. Thank you! I usualy pretreat with a laundry soap when the stain is still fresh and than again before washing and it usually works. Or like Mark said with some dishwashing liquid. But this load was really a big challenge because every single piece was so dirty. But still, I'm happy with the results.

Ingemar