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As someone concerned with environmental impact, I’m curious what options are there for more sustainable clothes detergents. How effective are powdered detergents, in your opinion?
I have been using powdered detergent all my life and I can safely say they are at the least just as good as liquid and definitely better for the environment, only downside is if you want to use it to pre-treat you have to mix it with water but that beats the laundry sheets that can’t be used for pre-treatment at all
Love Tide powder..i think the liquid is wasteful..and the pods are just silly.btw ..if you have stains a 10 min presoak w murphys oil soap works wonders!!
From my experience, powder is the best. For some difficult stains I have a stain spray.
First of all, stop buying clothes from fashion brands that throw chemicals into rivers
Thank you, for your work in this area. This will save me money, time, and frustration.
i would have visited their website but it you have to “unlock” the ratings of the products. 🙄
I have been using TruEarth for a while now and have been happy with how well they clean. When I saw your ratings, I was shocked by the low scores. So, I did my own test. I put identical ketchup, mustard, salad dressing, chocolate, dirt and ink stains on 2 identical 100% cotton pillowcases. I did two loads of wash, each containing the pillowcase, a pair of jeans, a dress shirt, a fleece pullover and 3 pairs of socks. I used cold water and medium water level. One wash was with one sheet of TruEarth and one was was done with the recommended amount of Persil. The results were almost identical.
I totally agree. I’ve been using Maravello laundry sheets from Amazon for over a year now & am so happy with them. Convenience was the first reason I tried them. Clearly though, the reduction of waste is immense. As for any stains, I always pretreat them anyway. I have no complaints about their effectiveness as I am fastidious about doing laundry. Also, let’s not forget transporting, handling & storage of the others. Nope… I’ve got to disagree on this one CR, sorry. I’m always recommending sheets to my friends.
I’ve been using TruEarth for 3 years and I love them! Also super easy to travel with!
I’ve been using tru earth for 6 months and for light to medium soils it works perfectly fine. If you’re a mechanic or something, then yea it ain’t gonna work.
Yes I use them too the results are indiscernible from my old detergent. Aside from the environmental benefits they’re just way more convenient in terms of saving space and precisely measuring the detergent without spills.
I agree
I obviously am not an expert, but my family has been using these for months and our clothes smell super fresh. Just as a note from a consumer.
They smell good they’re just not clean.
I’m with you ! As I always supported CR back in its “Hay-Day” as the research guru’s, I disagree on this one completely. I will never go back to bottles as it makes no sense. Maravello Sheets from Amazon work great & smell even better. I always pretreat laundry items & add Oxiclean powder anyway, no matter which detergent I use. My results for over a year couldn’t be better . Let me not forget to mention the great savings, convenience of transporing & storage of this product. I even have a dollar store plastic snap closure box that I transfer them into from their original packaging, which makes using them even easier. 😊
Does it mean they’re clean?
I remember that Fab sold detergent in a sheet, in the 1990’s, but the sheet doubled as a dryer fabric softener sheet, once the clothes were put in the dryer. But it didn’t clean as well as a regular detergent.
I forgot about that!
I don’t get that dirty. I make my own detergent out of bar soap, borax and washing soda. 20 dollars a year and no more plastic if you already have the bucket. I have spot cleaned with H2O2 for some stains and a vinegar rinse for towels rarely.
Can you shed more details regarding your homemade washing detergent?
In my country in the past, there was a way to wash clothes by using a tool made of wood called a FARAKA and using 100 percent natural soap made from olive oil.
But after the nineteenth century
People began to change this habit with electric machines, and they replaced natural soap with chemically made cleaning powders
In the past, washing clothes was a beautiful thing, where women gather near the river and start singing while washing their clothes, and the muscular effort that you put into washing clothes could be called a sport
Today, washing clothes has become a boring job. Every person washes clothes in his home using electric machines and chemical cleaning powders. When the washing is finished, the polluted water goes to the ground and harms the ground.
Yes, technology has made our lives more comfortable, but it has also made our lives more miserable and harmful to the environment
I am not against technological progress
But I want to see technological progress, taking into account nature and the planet, technological progress that will protect humanity from demise and extinction.
Therefore, I want to propose a good and beautiful idea that guarantees people’s comfort and happiness at the same time. They are as follows: I suggest that every neighborhood have an open place for washing clothes, and you have a laundry equipped with green energy such as solar panels, and that the people of the neighborhood, men and women, choose a day for washing clothes, so that everyone gathers at the washing station and plays music and talks and plays while washing and uses soap powder natural
Thus, washing clothes does not remain boring, and we have benefited from the ancient ancestral traditions with their correction (by adding men) and modern technology.
I hope you give me your opinion about this idea
So are your criticisms
Omg perfect.
My husband was a plumber for close to a decade. He hates homemade detergent. He says for some reason it clings to pipes. He always recommended to customers just to use the washing soda. You do you,just a tip❤
Where do you add the vinegar? In the softener dispenser?
Their cleaning power does suck. But the environmental impacts of not shipping heavy liquid bottles and plastic waste can’t be understated. That’s a lot of diesel fuel not being burned and a lot of plastic not being tossed.
In my country in the past, there was a way to wash clothes by using a tool made of wood called a FARAKA and using 100 percent natural soap made from olive oil.
But after the nineteenth century
People began to change this habit with electric machines, and they replaced natural soap with chemically made cleaning powders
In the past, washing clothes was a beautiful thing, where women gather near the river and start singing while washing their clothes, and the muscular effort that you put into washing clothes could be called a sport
Today, washing clothes has become a boring job. Every person washes clothes in his home using electric machines and chemical cleaning powders. When the washing is finished, the polluted water goes to the ground and harms the ground.
Yes, technology has made our lives more comfortable, but it has also made our lives more miserable and harmful to the environment
I am not against technological progress
But I want to see technological progress, taking into account nature and the planet, technological progress that will protect humanity from demise and extinction.
Therefore, I want to propose a good and beautiful idea that guarantees people’s comfort and happiness at the same time. They are as follows: I suggest that every neighborhood have an open place for washing clothes, and you have a laundry equipped with green energy such as solar panels, and that the people of the neighborhood, men and women, choose a day for washing clothes, so that everyone gathers at the washing station and plays music and talks and plays while washing and uses soap powder natural
Thus, washing clothes does not remain boring, and we have benefited from the ancient ancestral traditions with their correction (by adding men) and modern technology.
I hope you give me your opinion about this idea
So are your criticisms
Laundry sheets still contain a thin plastic film according to their ingredients. I think laundry soda may be less plastic but it’s heavier to ship 😅
@Mohamed B6good idea I enjoyed reading that comment
@Local shower shitter thanks
I feel like powder just intuitively feels the most environmentally friendly. Comes in a recyclable carton box, is way more concentrated than liquid, and you can choose the amount of detergent based on your needs (which is basically always less than you think).
I refill liquid detergent into the same bottle over and over again and it just solves the issue of powder not being nice (for me), and liquid not coming with a new bottle all the time. But this obviously assumes you can find liquid detergent that doesn’t come in it’d own bottle all the time.
I’ve been using these for my family for about a year now and they work totally fine! Maybe we’re missing out on some super turbo cleaning, but we save a lot of plastic
Plot twist: Consumer reports is paid by the big laundry detergent companies.
Listen. I was thinking that but I didn’t want to say it 😄. I hope it’s not true, though.
Just like the BBB, they are funded by anyone who pays
Yep
I don’t believe that. Prove it.
Cant go wrong with the Tide family
How about old fashioned powders?
I’ve been using them for about a year and I think they clean just fine 🤷♀️
This came up on my shorts page and I’ll just say this. I’ve been using these sheets for over 3 months. And they work well and my clothes smelled great it’s less bulky, less heavy! Works for me and I will continue to use them I suggest if you want to tone on the bulk especially if you’re someone with a disability like me who’s disability doesn’t allow them to pick up heavy bottles of detergent anymore, go for it!
Same, I have EDS and the sheets are so much more accessible! Pods come with the 4 corners child safety latches here that are just a nightmare if your hands aren’t working great, I’d have to leave box powder detergent on the floor (not safe with children and animals) because I couldn’t use it if it was high up, and I can barely lift the liquid detergent bottles to measure it out!
Laundry sheets work well on my street clothes, ya know, the clothes you wear day to day that will smell like BO long before they’re really dirty. But I also work in a kitchen and those clothes get coated in a layer of the aerosolized grease (never mind how they look when I deep clean the grills). And then there’s my outdoors clothes. When I’m working on my parents land or doing my degree’s fieldwork they get coated in a fine layer of dust and dirt on top of the mud stains. I’ve found laundry sheets just don’t get heavily soiled clothes clean. I’ve also had issues with the pods not working as well in the cold water my polypro winter base layers need to be washed in. I have a bad shoulder (thanks hypermobility) and when it’s acting up my solution is those big jugs of laundry detergent that come with a little tap on the top where the cap is. You rest them on their side and just push a button to dispense.
@Vivian Loney I don’t think they have tap bottles in my country, but they sound interesting.
I found that the pods didn’t always dissolve on cool washes, so you’d get weird residue and patches on the clothes
I use laundry supplies from a company called Molly’s Suds. I have VERY sensitive skin and since switching I have not had any issues. We have a farm and the products I use for laundry brings out everything from the dirt to odor and my whites look great. I don’t use fabric softener in the wash so nothing is masked by sent.
I just appreciate the comments from people who actually use the products, sharing their experience.
I have been using laundry sheets (Earthbreeze) for 3 months now and I love it. My clothes are clean and I’m not breaking out in rashes.
Keep in mind that it also depends on how dirty you get your clothes and how well you stack them. Some people may overload their machines, causing them to perform poorly. There’s a lot of variables, here as to why they may work better for you.
We’ve been using Earth Breeze for a couple years now and we love them! They work great and I LOVE that they’re SO much better for the environment. I still use Shout for stains and Oxy for our white towels, but I did that with regular detergent too. I’m not so sure I trust Consumers Report anymore. I don’t know what’s happening with them.
I guess we are not dirty people because we’ve been using sheets for a while and love them. My son said he loves using them because they are so easy to use and our laundry is as clean as when we were using pods. I buy mine online and love them.
Have you compared liquid to powder detergent? I would love to see that!
The algorithm has decided i need a laundry education