What is your favorite detergent? I for one, use Tide Free, and I love the way it works,54 responses total.
I guess I would vote for Tide because "way back when" I was working with detergents, Tide was the benchmark product, against which others measured themselves.
and to think that now there are only about 10,000 products out there that claim to be the best...
True, but at least in past years, Tide was measureably better than anything on the market. We used a "Launder-o-Meter" which gave a standard wash cycle carefully controlled. The results were measured several ways, but whiteness was measured on a Reflect-o-meter using standard reflectance methods. Part of the success of a product is its proprietary "Whiteners, or Brightners" and another part is its "suspending agents." The whiteners tend to be UV fluorescing agents and mask (hide) yellowing. The suspending angents are a hodgepodge of polymers and they tend to have more affinity for suspended soils than does the fabric. I believe that the makers of Tide put heavy duty $$$$ into R & D.
Just out of curiousity, where did you work, Marc?
I did an early stint at J.B. Ford Division of Wyandotte Chemicals Co. (That was before it was BASF Wyandotte)
Consumer Reports rated Tide with bleach alternative best this month. The other "flavors" of Tide rated in the top 5 or 10 also. Must be Tide really *is* better. ;)
It was the best in the past, & I'd bet it is among the best now.
As f-w of this conf, I hereby declare Tide to be the official detergent of the Laundry conference. Any objections?
Yes. We must argue about it for a long time first. Besides, we don't use Tide, and I would not feel welcome here if the Tide runs against me.
Fair enough, debate shall continue.
Well, you had just better change your ways, Rane, or you will never come clean.
I'll come clean: I have the book _Synthetic Detergents_ (Davidson and Milwidsky), and it doesn't even mention Tide. Would you be interested in TAED instead?
Debate it is! (BTW we use Cheer Free)
re 12- I'd like to read that someday. I'm still interested in the chemistry of laundry stuff.
3 Cheers for free and clear. Perfumes/dyes make me itch. %0-##<
personally I use what[D[Dever is on sale!!!!
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See, I told you!
Which was the one that was "brighter than bright" (or "whiter than white"). One of my chem profs told me they spiked that one with stuff that absorbed ultraviolet and emitted in the visible spectrum (so their claim was indeed true).
All (to my knowledge) detergent products include "whiteners", which flouresce. (Visit a flourescent mineral exhibit some time, and check your white clothes). I would also say, that detergent products consist of nothing but "spikes": they are mixtures of many chemicals each of which serves a particular function (in conjunction with the others).
It is common to add fluorescing agents to detergents. These agents give off a bluish-white to greenish-white light when exposed to UV. I remember the advertising slogan "whiter than white" but can not recall the product.
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That's OK: I bake my cakes with fluor.
I was at the top of the park last night (taking photos by the way) and I saw a guy with a jacket with a full size Tide logo. The whole jacket made him look like a box of Tide with legs, arms, and a head.
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Good Stuff!
ref #24: didja get a good shot of him? OK, you all have convinced me. I am going to try Tide Free, but if I get a rash on my delicate parts you are all taking a dip in an icy river, compliments of the Itchy Otter.
No, for some reason it never occured to me to take his picture. Lost opportunity.
Wow...this conference really _is_ about laundry, isn't it?! Amazing...
And, what were you expecting, dirty secrets maybe?
That's what I'd assumed from the description - a place to come clean... :)
Well, gee, orin, you should've said something. I knew that for a long time! (Dan's the ditz! Dan's the ditz! Teehee! Snowth isn't clueless for once!)
Hi....my name is Dan, and I've got a problem. I....I...I'm a...ditz! <sob> How's that for dirty secrets?
Wash cold with plenty of Tide and a *very* small amount of Chlorox (about 2 oz for a full-size washer). Drip dry, do not wring, and you should be okay. Try gentle cycle on the wash at first.
I confess. I'm a Tide user, too. I realy love clothes and I discovered a long time ago that of all the detergents I tried (and I tried a lot of them) Tide made the biggest difference in how clean my clothes seems at folding time. That was enough for me.
We bought a 50 gallon drum of the powder (sodium alpha olefin sulfonate) that is the basic ingredient of most detergents, and use it together with a water softener (ours has phosphate, but you can use washing soda - sodium carbonate). We figure a gallon of the liquid, mixed to the same concentration as commercial detergents, cost us 50 cents. We have been selling it to friends for a dollar (to account for inflation since we bought it tenn years ago). It also works fine on dishes. No bluing agents, anti-deposition-agents, bleaches, enzymes or anything else in it. Our white shirts are gradually getting grayer, but we don't care. We wash clothing when it looks or smells dirty, and this stuff gets out what we care about. (The grey may be because we wash in cold water and the calcium and magnesium combine with the detergent and precipitate out on the clothing. A hot water wash with softener removes a lot of this grey). If anyone is interested, I can pass on a sample and look up the address of the Detroit distributor. A major advantage is the complete lack of added fragrance, and you can't smell the active ingredient. It also has no peanut shells added for bulk, or coloring agents. We have a different product for shampoo/soap (actually I think the formula above was the shampoo, the detergent has a benzene ring in it.) Biodegradable, made in Chicago.
Is anyone familiar with laundry discs? They're 3/ $50.00, replace detergent completely and last something like 1000 washes? I've read they work but hate to spend $50.00 to experiment.
They don't work. Try washing without detergents at all. You will get the same effect for much less money.
Is this from experience or reason, Rane? ;)
It is what has been reported by people trying them out. Also, logic tells you that they can't do anything any other lump of anything in the wash could do, since they add nothing to the wash. So, it is from the experience of others plus reason.
See alternative water softeners item in environment conference. We have a friend who just received some of these disks for Christmas and might be willing to lend them out. His mother likes them. As I wrote in under water softeners, they may have something to do with preventing crystallization of calcium carbonate by magnetizing the dissolved iron in the water, assuming that they work. I have never seen or used them myself, and could find nothing on the Internet. If your clothing is not very dirty, you may be able to just wash with washing soda, which will react with any grease in the laundry to form soap, which will help to get out any remaining grease. (Hot water and/or a long soak would help with the reaction). Try about 1/4 - 1/2 cup soda. It is very cheap and nontoxic and will not hurt the environment, but you might want to keep it off your skin as it is drying, sort of alike a very mild form of lye. Washing soda is sodium carbonate, will not cause algae to grow, or hurt most fabrics. (Don't use on wool or silk). Soap is formed when an alkali (such as lye, potash from wood ashes, or sodium carbonate) splits up a fat molecule (which consists of glycerol and three fatty acids) into glycerol and three sodium-plus-fatty acids, one end of which is soluble in water, and the other in fat.
There is no effect of magnetism on the crystallization of calcium carbonate and iron ions (ferric or ferrous) are not magnetic and, if they were, that would have no affect upon calcium carbonate precipitation. These "explanations" are all hand-waving and pseudo science. However keesan is correct in describing sodium carbonate, soaps and fatty acids, etc. Sodium carbonate is often a component of detergents (as sold in the box, these are all mixtures), though its function is primarily to precipitate calcium carbonate and bulk out the product. The detergents do the actual grease removal.
Magnetite is magnetic. Sodium carbonate reacts with fats to form soap, which is a detergent, as well as serving as a water softener. That is why is dries out your skin, it removes the fats by converting them to soap.
Magnetite is not in solution as ions. It is a solid and would have no affect upon calcium carbonate precipitation. There is a technical distinction between soaps and detergents. The former are all alkali metal salts of fatty acids, while the latter are not, but any of a very large variety of (mostly synthetic) substances that have hydrophilic and hydrophobic sections of their molecules.
We will ask our friend who owns the laundry 'crystals' to see if they are magnetic. While looking on the Internet for a combination washer-dryer I found Nadior Corp., Ltd., British, which is developing technology for a microwave dryer and an ultrasonic washer, which they plan eventually to combine as one unit. I am sorry, I could not find anything on magnet-type water softeners on the Internet. Ultrasonic washers are used in hospitals, don't know what they look like or do. I wonder if the 'crystals' are just sodium carbonate? Or perhaps concentrated detergent? You really need very little to get laundry clean, we use a pinch of the actual detergent (no additives) plus some water softener, so maybe they are just selling you $50 worth of detergent. Who knows.
Rane, I would be interested to see your book on Synthetic Detergents. I had done some research before we bought our 50 gal drum of sodium alkylbenzene sulfonate (a synthetic detergent). Shampoos are sodium alpha olefin sulfonate or sodium lauryl sulfate. (The latter turns to a gel at our winter room temperature). MacMillan Dictionary defines detergent as any cleansing agent, esp. one made synthetically and resemblling soap in its cleansing action but not in its chemical composition. Soap has a -COO- group at the end of the long straight-chain hydrocarbon, wherease the synthetic detergents (note that soap is a natural detergent) have -SOO3-, which makes them work better in hard water. (Can you tell us why?) The benzyl group I think adds to the charge on the SOO3-, making it more polar, so that the benzenesulfonate detergents are stronger, and therefore not used on skin or hair but on clothing and dishes. They will work if you like dry hair and skin.
I will post the reference when I'm in my office. "Detergent" is used non-technically for almost any cleaning agent, but as you found, it refers "esp. one made synthetically". The alkaline earth (calcium and magnesium in particularly) salts of fatty acids are insoluble in water, requiring softening agents in soap mixtures. The alkaline earth salts of sulfonates, and other ionic detergent radicals, are soluble. There are also non-ionic detergents, which are more expensive, but work at any pH (soaps, sulfonates and similar ionic detergents will usually not work in acid solutions).
<wonders what a microwave drier would do when confronted with zippers>
Zippers probably wouldn't matter. (Though i'd suggest leaving them unzipped.) An underwire bra could easily catch fire, though.
Re #46: A. S. Davidsohn & B. Milwidsky, _Synthetic Detergents_, 7th ed., Longman Sci. & Tech (Wiley and Sons, New York), 1987.
Re 49-50, there does not appear to actually be any microwave drier.
From armand.gilinsky@sonoma.edu Tue Jan 27 20:54:26 1998
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 13:33:36 -0800
From: Armand Gilinsky <armand.gilinsky@sonoma.edu>
To: "C. Keesan" <keesan@cyberspace.org>
Subject: Re: Nadior Corp. Ltd washer/
RE>Nadior Corp. Ltd washer/dryer 1/27/98
Sorry, this was a disguised case study for academic purposes only. I am
afraid that I cannot get you any more information.
Armand Gilinsky
--------------------------------------
Date: 1/23/98 12:45
To: Armand Gilinsky
From: C. Keesan
While looking for information on a combination washer-dryer (one
case, not stacked), I ran across mention of Nadior's plans for an ultra
sonic washer and microwave dryer. Where can I get more information?
Several of us (via a local bbs) would appreciate details, and would
in particular like to know what happens to metal zippers and underwire bras in
a micro
wave environment. DO you have an e-mail address or website for Nadior?
C. Keesan (Keesan.@grex.org). Many thanks.
Dreft is about the only Detergent that doesn't make my clothes irritate me.
Bjorn, if you are really sensitive to detergents, we have one that will probably not bother you, it is a single ingredient that we got from the factory in a 50 pound drum.
Well, it's also good for washing my diapers.