On The Quest For A New Powdered Laundry Detergent

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This really is not worth arguing about

as the saying goes its horses for courses and not all hats fit all heads.

I am expressing my own opinion of the findings I had when using said products ymmv !
 
As Adam mentions, it works best in warm and hot water. I don't have issues with it dissolving in 85F temps in a top loader but I can see it having issues in a front loader. Liquid detergent produces better results for dark items, anyway. It works very well for oil and grease stains as well as ground in dirt, which aligns with my habits. It contains no enzymes but using oxybleach makes up for most of its downfalls. I really enjoy the almost undetectable scent rather than smelling like a purfumey whorehouse.
 
Well, I found my old bucket of Kirkland today... lingering in the workshop building here. Can't remember the last time I used it, though.

I may bring it in to test on the next load in a week or so. I typically use warm or hot water, very rarely if ever cold. So it should be OK for me. Since it's probably going to disappear soon, I might swing by the local Costco to pick up a bucket or two extra. Depending on the price of course. As I recall, it can also be used for other cleaning, such as floors and walls.

The water here is relatively soft, which may help it perform better. Although as the drought wears on perhaps the water will get harder.
 
That's weird. I haven't seen those big buckets of detergent at my Costco...anyway...for the past few years I've used Windfresh in the big bucket. Yes, it's one of those detergents that's probably not the best...but seriously I have never had an issue with it....If I have an oil stain on some clothing I usually put a drop of dish soap on it...I don't feel like it makes the clothes stiff and everything feels clean. I just feel like powder is so much easier to deal with and since it comes in such a large container...you don't have to think about buying it for a year or more...

I've never been a detergent whore as much as I am an appliance whore.
 
Non bio detergent

These do become rarer and rarer - don't think I have seen a detergent without enzymes in powder for here in Germany in a few years.

Even the cheapo detergents from the more eastern country's that make it into our dollar kind stores now had enzymes.
But still very soap heavy and nothing fancy like specific water softeners.

Modern enzymes are technically designed to work at way broader temps then earlier formulations.

Many DW detergents contain enzymes even though most DWs don't enzyme stage heating and run at over 120F.

So I wouldn't sweat that.
Enzymes alone don't clean, so any good detergent will have decent cleaning in high temps aswell.

I usually look for other stuff. Like rinsing being ok.
Not to many suds.

If it's just a cheap detergent for soaking I go more for price and don't care.
If it is to perform good in a washer I usually don't look at price per se, but go for any main brand stuff on offer.
 
Biggest thing that can be said about enzymes in laundry detergents is they shift certain soils at lower temperatures. This and with less aggressive chemical action including strong bleaches.

As have said commercial laundries largely rely upon chemicals and pH levels to deal with all sorts of soiling. But then again wash cycles there are rarely longer than 8-12 minutes. Heavy soiling might have a pre-wash and or multiple main washes however.

Whole "turn down the dial" thing for wash temperatures relies heavily upon enzymes, and activated oxygen bleaching systems (latter for whites and colourfast items). This and detergents loaded with lots of surfactants, solvents and tons of other chemicals. Indeed ingredient list for most TOL liquid laundry detergents goes on and on.
 
I went down to Costco, got my membership renewed and…

I literally bought myself a Bucket of it, plus I picked up some milk as well, so now it sits next to the other one that my mum uses although bad news, I found out Oxy clean is discontinued, that wonderful powdery product which is basically the same as vanish, I absolutely LOVED it, and in regards to bio and non-bio detergents, what are used to do for my three knob European machine (the semi automatic) What is I used to run the first wash with Biozet Laundry detergent, and for the second wash, I’d use this And it works really well, the only thing I would have to do is turn the temperature down to not create genocides at the microbial level, then once it drains I turn the temperature up to the 60° wash that I normally do and it does its thing

adam-aussie-vac-2022042712054905147_1.jpg
 
Two washes

Just had to chuckle...

When enzymes in detergents were becomming a thing in the 50s (I think) around the EU they were marketed as presoaks and prewash detergents.

First automatics jumping on the Bio train had a long bio prewash which was anywhere from a couple of minutes to hours of warm soaking/washing followed by high temp main washing.
You'd dose your normal detergent in the main wash and the enzyme stuff in the prewash.

That slowly became products being good for both, then to no longer needing prewashing.

2 more modern things that came from that school that still persist to this day:

A) Some washer programmings use "enzyme staging". Though it has become very rare now aswell, a few manufactureres do (or used to) add a stage around 104F/40C where heating is paused for a couple of minutes before they resume and heat to target temp.

B) A few manufacturers allow staged addition of bleaching agents. For example, ELux does that here with their "Stains" option: That keeps any oxy type product seperate until a certain temp is reached, only then its flushed in, dissolved for 5 min before heating then resumes.
A few more niche manufacturers actually have "bio component detergent" setting of some sort. For example, the new machine I'll be getting next week; there cou can set a programming option that once you press the prewash option, allows you to choose from either prewash, "soap detergent" or "bio detergent".
Soap detergent makes you add a water softener in the prewash and your detergent in the main wash. Then it first flushes in the water softener, and only after that has worked adds the detergent, since soaps get inactive when they hit hard water.
The "bio detergent" setting flushes in the main detergent first and adds the bleaching part later once a certain temp is reached.

The US laundry set up of course makes it way more reasonable to use that method of 2 washes to get bio activity and bleaching on one load, even if it is archaeic by our standards.

But it still is very funny to hear people doing stuff today just from sheer need that we moved past decades ago here lol...
 
'Nother idea for non bio detergent

At least over here, you can get "industrial" detergents quite readily for decent enough prices for bulk containers.

While dosages are usually insanely high compared to noraml concetrated detergents one finds at stores, these are usually designed for the sub 30min mainwashes and thus don't rely on enzymes.

Maybe the US has simmilar products?
Most if not any big brand detergent available for household use around here has a "professional" version you get a big box stores or through amazon.
 
One can find OPL sort of institutional laundry products such as Kirkland, WindFresh, and others on shelves here for anyone including domestic consumers to purchase.

OTOH really big players like Ecolab, Diversey and others do not sell to anyone but commercial customers (laundries, dry cleaners, etc....) Everything comes through distributors or other suppliers who among other things are supposed to ensure against diversion. In many instances these products do not come with dosage information, supplier or dealer shows up at laundry or whatever and calibrates dosage to suit needs. Often not even owners of plants know what dosage is, they have to keep referring back to Ecolab or whoever if things aren't going well.

This being said thanks to our friend Mr. Internet one can usually find Ecolab and other products being offered to anyone with a pulse. This is usually stock from closed laundries or other professional customers now surplus to requirements. Since Ecolab or whoever won't take things back, it's just sold on...

Thing is Ecolab does *NOT* provide any sort of support for domestic customers. As stated if people have problems with such products they are directed to local distributor/supplier who acts as sales rep well as customer support/technical advisor.
 
Another thing

Many of these proper commercial/institutional products are highly concentrated with powerful chemicals. If something requires only say ten ounces per 100lbs of wash, you'd have to work out on one's own amount needed for standard 11 to 18 pound home style washing machine.

Then there is also fact true commercial washing machines are designed and built to withstand exposure to quite often harsh alkalis, acids and other chemicals commonly found in institutional laundry products. Sodium hydroxide, sodium metasilicate, oxalic acid, sodium hydrosulphite, hydrochloric acid, hydrogen fluoride, and lately peracetic acid are staples in commercial laundries. Repeated exposure at high or even low levels can harm soft metals that commonly are used in domestic washing machines (brass, titanium, copper, nickel, aluminum). OTOH true commercial/industrial washing machines will have hard metals such as various grades of stainless steel.

Acids can harm various materials made from rubber such as seals: https://sciencing.com/list-7498602-chemicals-harmful-rubber-seals.html
 
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So weird those big buckets of kirkland detergent aren't even on the costco website...searching "laundry detergent".. I have a feeling it's the same thing as Wind Fresh or at least very similar... I guess I've never had a problem with it dissolving EVER because I always use warm/hot.. I've never done two washes...one for bio wash and one for bleach....I didn't even know that was a thing.

Regarding the Kirkland dishwasher pods. I have some and while I do like the way they clean...I don't like the smell they leave. So when I'm done with this bucket I'm going back to Finish powerball
 
Henene4

What is your view on German Persil Detergent? very curious about the German Persil Detergent (mainly the powdered). Please give as many details as possible about it.

Thank you
 
Try this stuff its great , Its low cost depending on optics, Its detergents for Hotels.  

https://worldwidejanitor.com/laundr...-enzyme-laundry-detergent-25-lbs-pail-p-51769  

 The detergent has enzymes in it and Phosphates for very light lemon scent. I use and it works great .

Detergents work much better with Phosphates that goes double on stain removal.

 Its a 25 pound for 59 bucks .. That is the one you want low suds , enzymatic,

Its the Enzymes that do all the  cleaning . These low cost detergents for the most part take that out.

 

 
 
Looks ok, I could do without the optical brighteners but everything else seems fine. Waiting for expert opinions from Launderess.
 
LoSuds from Crown Chemical....

This likely will do for your purposes OP...

There are dozens of janitorial/laundry/cleaning product companies in USA alone that supply private label products for institutional use.

https://www.crown-chem.com/assets/files/pdfs/sds/LoSuds.pdf

https://www.crown-chem.com/products/laundry/item?sub=Detergents&product=LoSuds&id=304

Fact LoSuds is highly concentrated tells me pH is up there, which is normal as use of alkaline substances provides cleaning without necessarily lots of froth.

Unfortunately formula (as usually always) is proprietary, so Crown doesn't list exactly what is in the stuff.

Notice up front LoSuds tells you that for heavy soils and certain stains you need to either pretreat, presoak, or add additional chemicals. Thus even though contains enzymes this product like Kirkland, Boardwalk and other such powders aren't like top shelf domestic products such as Tide or Persil. But that's ok for institutional or commercial laundry use where there is vast array of boosters and other chemicals that can be purchased. It all depends upon what soil/stain you're wanting to remove.

Crown like the rest has a vast array of products.

https://www.crown-chem.com/products/laundry
 
Powdered worse than Megaperls

The truly powdered Persil is rare over here now and is generally ok, but not great.

The Megaperls are great though.
I love their smell. Their performance is great. Dosage can be very conservative.
They can stick to detergent drawers if any moisture is around though and take a few seconds longer to dissolve than true powders - and they are expensive - but I like them none the less.

The Color version generally rinses a bit worse and sudses more than the Universal (whites) version.
That appears to be true for both liquid and Megaperls.

Biggest "trap" there is buying the bulk 10kg+ packages.
If you don't look closely you will get the powder, and that is because it is stretched a lot with filler.
Still performs OK, but not the same.

That however isn't true for the commercial version that you can find on Amazon.
I haven't used that yet, though.
 
Forgot to say...

These sort of institutional/commercial/janitorial or whatever you want to call them laundry powders make two usual assumptions; things will be done in hot (140 to 160 degrees F) water washes, and liberal use of chlorine or another sort of bleach.

Addition of enzymes is good, but most OPL, laundromat, institutional, commercial laundries do not run wash cycles nearly long enough to see total benefit. On machines with programmable cycles it would be possible I suppose to create one or more wash baths long enough in total to take full advantage, but then you're tying up a washer for longer periods.

SQ washers at my local laundromat on "Heavy" soil run 30mins start to finish.
 
Dan

Since you get on with the Kitkland powdered detergent (mostly washing soda)
And have skin issues with other powder detergents...I'm wondering if your skin doesn't like optical brighteners?
Even All Free n Clear has OBs in it, as well as powdered Tide Freen n Clear.
So maybe try unscented Ecos or Seventh Generation liquid detergent (they contain no OBs)
Then spike with a little OxyClean (OxyClean is about 50% Washing soda anyway..so
Maybe youl create a dupe for the Kitkland ?
 
@henene4 Non Bio

Person Non-Bio and Fairy Non-Bio are still huge sellers here and in Britain. There’s a cohort who are firmly convinced (by decades of non bio ads) that enzymes are a tool of the devil and slightly more dangerous than plutonium.

I know a woman from England living in France who literally spends a fortune shipping precious Persil Non Bio to France, despite several (more than the uk) excellent sensitive skin detergents being rather easily available in any French supermarket.

I like the smell of Persil non bio liquid but I find it rather rough on clothes compared to other options, including Persil Bio.

There’s a cult of non bio on these islands that all traces back to a series of tabloid articles in the 1970s about skin allergies and a huge PR campaign to sell old fashioned Lever Persil, which had yet to adopt any enzymes.
Ariel was a much higher tech product until New System Persil caught up and Persil Non Bio was launched to capture a somewhat conservative market. It then increasingly got sold as a baby friendly, skin safe product.

Persil here has historically been sold a kind of wholesome mummy brand against Ariel which was all about tech and performance. That changed somewhat in the 80s but by splitting the Persil brand. Persil Non Bio retained that market and P&G Fairy Non Bio competes in the same space.

I can’t see it changing as we’ve effectively got a duopoly between P&G and Unilever and neither of them seem to be willing to rock the boat with an enzyme containing sensitive detergent.

It’s so extreme that a friend of mine was literally told off by someone for buying biological detergent! It’s like the cult of non bio!
 
Non bio powder

Now someone correct me if I am mistaken but I was always led to believe that non bio powder cleaned by bleaching fabrics as opposed to using enzymes? Which always made it superb for washing whites. Having used it for years for said whites I have gone back to Ariel as Persil non bio stopped cleaning as well when it became more suitable for sensitive skin.... Personally I have never been a believer in the hype its better for skin I have always assumed if your machine rinsed efficiently and it was spun well there should be no skin pollutants left??? Using Ariel and then when Lidl came along used their bio powder and colour powder for years and none of my children suffered any ill effects. IMHO its lazy washing habits that are more likely to be to blame not the product itself but can't imagine that being put on a box of Bold can you ????
 
They don’t rely on bleach anymore than biological detergents do, but they definitely rely on the chemical components of the detergent exclusively.

The history of non-bio in this part of the world is all about marketing. There were a series of panics about enzymes in the 70s and Persil Non Bio allowed Lever to continue to produce their traditional formula while also selling New System Persil Bio as a separate product line.

I suspect P&G with their European R&D centre in Belgium that came up with Ariel (and it’s related sub brands) as a very high tech focused product was just way ahead of them.

It would be strange if enzymes were having a weird allergy effect only in two countries, and everyone else on the planet didn’t even notice them.

They’re much more energy efficient and environmentally friendly than relying on chemicals alone and they’ve also become more sophisticated as the decades rolled on and are able to breakdown soil, stains and odour very effectively and rapidly.

Marketing detergent used to be a big deal business and a case study on how to do consumer advertising. They’re far less exciting campaigns these days and actually don’t seem to be advertised nearly as much. You rarely see detergent advertising on TV or even online, which to me indicates the big players have more profitable things to be getting on with.

It’s a pity we don’t have a couple more big players in the market here though. It’s effectively a regional duopoly of Unilever & P&G. Henkel, Colgate Palmolive and others don’t feature at all and beyond that it’s just private label brands in supermarkets, which are becoming a lot more sophisticated and competent as products.

The impression I get is that as the store brands improved, particularly with the arrival of Lidl and Aldi, the market moved away from the old tag team of P&G or Unilever.

If you went back to even the 1990s supermarket brand detergent was usually packed in an ugly box, had a cheap scent and performed badly compared to the branded competitors. That’s just not the case anymore. Many of the store brands seem to be very effective.
 
Non-Bio Powder

Even the UK supermarkets sell their own 'Non-Bio' powders, so it is not really a duopoly between P&G and Lever.
 
Non bio detergents in general have a higher level of bleaching agents than not, at least top shelf products. As noted this is to remove color from marks that aren't broken apart and lifted by surfactant and mechanical action in wash. Advent of oxygen bleach activators meant this could be accomplished at temps lower than boil wash.

Enzymes are nowadays promoted in part for bleaching action since they do break apart and help remove marks. This is why products labeled having "Oxi" or "Oxy" action don't always contain any sort of bleach, but are loaded with enzymes, polymers, higher level of surfactant, etc... Idea here is to replace results given with bleaches...

Enzyme residue..

Many commercial or industrial laundries that deal with infant/child wash (such as those for baby or children ward of hospitals), do not use enzyme containing detergents or other products. Apparently there is some fear about leaving residue that can irritate sensitive skin.

Most common skin irritants from laundry products are perfumes and dyes, not saying enzymes are all good or bad.
 
"Enzymes are nowadays promoted in part for bleaching action since they do break apart and help remove marks. This is why products labeled having "Oxi" or "Oxy" action don't always contain any sort of bleach, but are loaded with enzymes, polymers, higher level of surfactant, etc... Idea here is to replace results given with bleaches..."

Just learned something new. Another reason why I love this site and the people in it.
 
Non-bio detergents, as sold here anyway, don't contain any extra bleach. The majority of them currently in use are liquids and pods and don't contain any bleach at all, just OBA.

Persil non-bio and Fairy non-bio powder in my experience simply don't shift stains effectively. Everything about how they're marketed is some notion of 'enzymes = evil' and 'skin safe'.

To give you an idea of how extreme it gets, I was on a holiday in France with some friends of mine a few years ago and did my laundry in the machine just throwing in some 'Le Chat' which worked exactly as you'd expect, being Henkel's premium detergent there. One of my travel mates found the box of detergent and acted like I had used plutonium in the washing machine.

She ran 4 rinses before she'd even use the machine and then put in Persil non bio, which she'd brought with her from England, like it was some kind of magic potion that cures all ills.

It's like trying to argue with aluminium foil hat wearers about 5G.
 
Tide "Oxi"

Notice P&G mentions nothing else but word "OXI", no claims about bleaching or whatever. No doubt clever marketing chaps have poured over tons of research and found people associate "oxi" with bleach (thanks to products like OxiClean no doubt".

Of course Tide OXI is a liquid detergent that does not contain any sort of bleaching agents, not that P&G ever said it did, so that's them for you.

What matters to most I suppose is results; and on that score Tide Oxi seems to get job done.

https://www.amazon.com/Tide-Ultra-Liquid-Laundry-Detergent/dp/B07B6B1KQ5

"Non-bio detergents, as sold here anyway, don't contain any extra bleach"

No, the various liquid formats likely won't.

Quick look through SDS shows Fairy non-bio powder contains 10-20 percent sodium percarbonate. Persil non-bio and FILETTI are down to 5-10 percent.

https://www.newhall.co.uk/media/7414_msds.pdf

https://www.mirius.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/800-509-0019-SDS10681-UK.pdf

https://cdn3.evostore.io/documents/ot_wholesale/coshh_154008.pdf

PERSIL PROFESSIONAL BIOLOGICAL is 5-15% sodium percarbonate

Persil bio powder (Diversey) is 3-10% sodium percarbonate

https://www.waikatocleaningsupplies.co.nz/file/file5d635cd0d2f28/open

Fairy non bio liquid is just glorified "liquid" detergent with good amount of surfactants for cleaning power. But wouldn't give half a crown for cleaning badly soiled wash.

https://www.phsdirect.co.uk/media/3954/bc2454-fairy-professional-non-bio-washing-liquid.pdf
 
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