People mention different things to explain why Americans did not get cozy with very high temperature wash: we have 120V as standard (240V outlets are not found everywhere, even when people have a single home and could pay for someone to install it), hot and cold fill hookups are usually available, people are afraid that the very high temps will damage the fabrics/garments, etc.
But the biggest factor, in my opinion, is a very simple one: people here are addicted to chlorine bleach -- that's why most people say 95C is unnecessary. Yes, a very high end detergent is helpful, but we did not have that until recently -- until Wisk tried to introduce tabs, Euro detergents were *much* better than our top-of-the-line Tide and Wisk. P&G only improved Tide substantially when Henkel entered the market with Persil.
So, until very recently, *anyone*, even people using chlorine bleach, would immediately notice a *huge* improvement after washing with detergents from Europe (Persil, Ariel, etc) and 95C (205F). The *other* thing that is common in this case, is that I've often heard people complain about "stains that came back after boiling!", that is, stuff that had been "gone" for years, say, a chocolate stain, that is now very faint, but noticeable. The problem is that now that the fabric is *whiter* than it's ever been, you notice the stain that even bleach could not remove. Once you wash the fabric at 95C a couple of times more, they'll disappear too.
And, I'd like to point out again, that bleach (even chlorine bleach) doesn't really "clean" the stains -- it removes the color. It can denature some proteins, but it's not a miracle worker. That's exactly why people who murder someone and "clean" the crime scene with bleach often end up in jail anyway. The color is gone, but there are plenty of tests that not only test for bleach presence, but also for the compounds that are still left behind.
The other thing I can say, to *both* camps, the European people who don't understand why/how we can live without "boil washes" *and* the American contingent who don't understand why/how European people don't turn their clothes into rags by boiling them: there is no wrong or right here. Clothes are basically manufactured to withstand the way local people wash them. And in any case, there is not a lot of difference between bleaching the laundry with chlorine every time and washing the clothes at 95C every time.
People who lived in both places (or used both methods) understand this very readily, it's not a hard concept to grasp. And in any case, the best way to get clean clothes and gentle wear/care is *still* to use the proper kinds and amounts of enzymes anyway.
Like the soap opera actress in Women at the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown said in the "advertisement", her son the murderer never went to jail because she washed all his clothes with OMO...
;-)
Until people understand that, they'll be fighting two unequal battles: people who want to finish their laundry sooner, and use up to 140F/60C and chlorine bleach, versus people who want a slightly whiter/cleaner laundry and wait 2 hours for a 95C wash with no bleach or oxygen bleach.
Cheers,
-- Paulo.
