Sulfate free All detergent

[lordkenmore]

I recently noticed a new version of All in town...er, in the detergent aisle. All Fresh Clean Essentials. The bottle--and website--claims it's sulfate free, which supposedly has benefits. I think the bottle claimed gentler on clothes vs. other bargain detergents (including other versions of All?), and the web site alludes to gentler on skin. I wonder if sulfate free does really have advantages... I also wonder if anyone has used this detergent, and, if so, what the impressions are.

 

I'm half tempted to get a bottle--but my regular store only has scented, and I don't really like scented laundry detergent these days.

 

https://www.all-laundry.com/products/fresh-clean-essentials

 

[supersurgilator]

I've used this detergent and I was impressed with it. I'm not sure if it is gentler or anything as I don't have sensitive skin, but I was impressed with it's cleaning ability. I got the scented version, but its not that strong of a smell.

 

[sweetpea68]

I was a long time user of ALL brand detergent, specifically the liquid versions. Unknowingly, I was creating a build up in my laundry that literally bit me in the nose, when I switched to Persil. ALL detergent contains Sodium Cocoate. and that's the culprit. The odor that came out of my laundry was as I can only describe as "the volatile vomit explosion". and the odor got worse when wearing the clothes. I had to strip everything I had washed in Persil. Then deep clean and use many other products to get the odor out of my clothes. PineSOl, Borax, Oxi white revive, oxiclean, Biz, stpp, calgon, and finally ended with detergent and Ammonia. Let me give credit to the PineSol as it did work, but the odor of pinesol in my clothes was just as horrendous. I found a thread here about using ammonia, and was so thrilled when it worked a true miracle of miracles! Though, all of that work was not a love of labor, let me tell Ya! I have to use a laundromat now so most of the work was done at home in the kitchen sink and bathtub. If YOu want an almost sure fire way to detect an odor problem in your clothes, soak them with calgon in water only. You'll definitely find YOur answer. blech!
If You are wanting to use ALL detergent, go for the powder version, as it does not contain the sodium cocoate.
If You've used ALL liquid, and want to switch to Persil, do yourself a favor and strip Your laundry beforehand.
good luck!

 

[launderess]

Sodium Cocoate

Is simply *soap*, which in one form or another is in nearly all liquid detergents, and a good number of powders as well.

In this instance to replace the sulfates All appears to have added more soap to compensate. You see this with many natural or so called "plant" based detergents, again especially liquids. The new Tide "pure" or whatever it is called has a healthy dose of soap as well.

 

[lordkenmore]

The new Tide "pure"

You're probably thinking of Tide Purclean.

 

They do mention sodium cocoate in Tide Purclean...but it's only  mentioned for "reduces sudsing". This seems a bit odd for soap, but who am I to question P&G? They make mention of several other ingredients that are listed as surfactants.

 

https://tide.com/en-us/shop/type/liquid/tide-purclean

 

[lordkenmore]

Only speculating here...but I wonder if part of the problem described above with going from All to Persil is that All is often not a particularly powerful detergent, thus buildup of all sorts can likely take place. I have used Free Clear version, and I was not terribly impressed--although it worked OK for many loads. But it wasn't something I'd want as a one and only detergent.

 

All powder was suggested above. The All Free Clear powder was hugely disappointing. Not very powerful, although I did eventually manage to use up the last bit of it--and by last I probably mean both "last I bought" and "last ever". Even a $1 per small bag of Mexican detergent seemed better.

 

I had much better experience with All Free Clear Oxi. I'd hope that the sulfate free All would be as good. (It's a hopeful sign, I think, that they mention enzymes.)

 

[launderess]

Truth to tell

All detergent while never a top shelf product really reached peak with the "Three B's" (Bleach, Borax and Brighteners)of 1960's/1970's, and has been on a slow decline ever since IMHO.

Their "free and clear" or "anti-allergen" formula seems to have gained some traction in past, but would never consider any version of All for truly heavy duty laundry. Tide runs rings around ALL any day of the week.

To me All always ranked in same category or maybe just ahead of other value brands such as Purex.

Part of the problem (again IMHO) was Lever Bros. never put the R&D into coming up with advanced surfactant, enzyme and bleaching formulas the way P&G, Henkel and others did; though to be fair the first two have hundreds of patents tying up those technologies.

 

[launderess]

Soap

Long has been used to control froth; Persil, Tide and other detergents contain soap in both their powder or liquid formats to some extent for that purpose.

However if you look at P&G's website for ingredients used in Tide, they list (or used to anyway) *soap* as a cleaning building as well claiming there certain soils where it excels.

From a link one posted previously; you want to look for "sodium fatty acids", or "stearic acid", and so forth:

https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i4/PG-Henkel-head-head-laundry.html?h=1384844903

At a basic level soap is nothing more than an anionic detergent, and there is nothing inherently wrong with the stuff for laundry purposes. It is only difficulties that arise with hard water minerals and some other factors that make soap hard to work with on laundry day.

However much of those difficulties can be overcome if soap is blended with various man made surfactants and or builders.

Right down the line, when you look at various "green" or whatever detergents, especially the liquids usually you'll find some form of soap.

As have said before; if you examine the wash water as it drains when using these liquid detergents often you'll see the same sort of "scum" that comes when bathing with soap. OTOH such scum is not present when one bathes with Dove or Zest because those bath/beauty bars are blends of soaps and man made surfactants.



Have no sure way of proving, and would have to research matter further but am more than unusually certain all these complaints of late regarding washing machines and or laundry giving off a whiff are from liquid detergent residue.

 

[mrboilwash]

If "clean" clothes smell like vomit the culprit is not the soap content in a detergent but a build up of sebum and the likes in clothes.
The use of inferior detergent and or not enough detergent over a longer period of time can lead to a nasty smelling build up in clothes. This happens when body oils and dead skin cells are either not sufficiently removed during the wash part or when redepositing during the rinse cycle.
Since body oils are not always clearly visible in worn clothes soil levels can easily be underestimated.
It`s no surprise that ammonia and Pinesol helped because both are strong and effective degreasers. Pinesol and Oxiclean also reduce germs counts which could be an additional problem if clothes have such a build up.

While soap also has other advantages as Launderess already pointed out (cleaning, water softening) a major purpose of soap like Sodium Cocate in laundry detergents is to control (supress) suds. The physics behind is quite simple, soap reacts with hard water minerals and part of it turns into lime soap. In theory this "soap scum" suppresses suds like any oils would but will not redeposit anywhere because it is held in suspension by the nonionic surfactants found in most detergents. This priciple may not work properly if detergents are underdosed. Another drawback of soap for sudscontrol is that you need a very small amount of water hardness to make it work at all. In mechanically softened water silicone oil might be a better option for suds control.

As to Sulfate free All if anyone finds a detailed ingredients list please share it with us. Inquiring mind wants to know what sodium laureth sulfate and the likes have been replaced with. Backside of the bottle just lists "sulfate free surfactants". What a joke !

 

[lordkenmore]

As to Sulfate free All if anyone finds a detailed ingredients list please share it with us. Inquiring mind wants to know what sodium laureth sulfate and the likes have been replaced with.

 

I've honestly wondered, too. I tried to find it on a Sun site that lists the ingredients, but it was too much of a pain. Searching either turned up zero hits, or turned up pages of data sheets. I might try and get a UPC code off a bottle (IIRC that's one option for searching) to see if that helps.


 

I will say one thing for Tide: the information is easy to come by. For various reasons, I've looked at a few detergents on their site, and each page talking about a specific detergent has--at the least--an easily seen link to a list of ingredients. Tide Purclean goes even further, having a list of ingredients on the regular product page, and an explanation of what each item does.

 

Perhaps I just should think of locking in on Tide just because they do a good job of providing information... Except, of course, I'm an AW.org member, and I like trying different detergents...

 

 

 

[sudsmaster]

Many older powder detergents contain sodium sulfate, which is just a cheap filler to bulk up the product to make one think one is getting more cleaning power.

Ultra detergents probably get that way by eliminating the sodium sulfate.

Sulfated surfactants are another matter.

 

[sudsmaster]

As for the toxicity of sulphated surfactants... there seems to be some hysteria about this topic.

SLS (Sodium Laureth Sulfate) and SDS (Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate) are the same chemical. Both are synthesized using coconut oil as the main ingredient. SLS is an excellent detergent and degreaser. In fact, it's so good, that a lot of the uproar about it is because it will readily remove fats and oils from skin, drying it out and causing irritation. The solution? Use a milder soap on the skin, or one with conditioner that prevents the drying.

The other issue is that in converting coconut oil to laureth, a process called ethoxylation takes place. In some cases, a very small amount of 1,4-dioxane is produced as a contaminant. And this 1,4-dioxane has been classed as a possible carcinogen (Note, I used to work with this chemical in a medical research lab for a few years, no cancer yet). The FDA says the amounts in commercial SLS is so low that it doesn't present a health risk. And 1,4-Dioxane should not be confused with the bad stuff in Agent Orange, which was dioxin, and does cause cancer. Sounds alike, not the same.

In the lab we used SLS (we called it SDS, more technical) in a variety of ways. Mainly by virtue of its strong degreasing ability, it could dissolve cell membranes and allow researchers to study the cell contents. In other applications it was used to keep samples flowing and mobile in a gel electrophoresis procedure, which is a fancy way of saying the distance that various components traveled in response to an electrical charge could be used to characterize them, and SDS made that possible.

My recommendation if one is really worried about sulfated surfactants in laundry detergents: Don't eat or drink the stuff. Make sure you don't overdose the laundry so the detergent get rinsed away at the end. If you're unsure, try adding NO detergent to the next batch of laundry and see how much suds are formed. If they are noticeable, then you've been OD'ing.

Cosmetics and shampoos are another matter, but irrelevant here; this is a laundry forum, not a beauty parlor.

 

[launderess]

Resurrecting old thread to answer query...

All Fresh Clean Essentials detergent contains: https://www.skinsafeproducts.com/al...ry-detergent-fragrance-free-30-ounce-23-loads

So while the stuff does not contain sulfates it relies upon ethoxylated alcohol, Coconut fatty acid salt (basically coconut soap), along with a few other rather suspect chemicals as replacements.

One has tons of soap and gobs of phosphates (STPP), which when coupled with hot to very water and a bit of knowledge will accomplish same if not better results with less toxic ingredients.

 

[sudsmaster]

Who is "one"?

And what is "very water"?

 

[launderess]

One ='s I

"very water" as in one has access to water temps ranging from hot (140F) to 160F out of the taps.

Clear now?

 

[sudsmaster]

Speak English, please.