I do believe my coworkers may be using entirely too much detergent. 😂

I just noticed that the "Pure" brand on Amazon has a BOGO offer on their powdered citric acid. With coupon it makes it 4lb for $10. No idea how long the coupon will last. It wasn't there a couple weeks ago.

I find myself so drained whenever I have to do laundry. I do sports so I typically have double the laundry for myself alone. I literally keep all my clothes in a pile which takes me forever to get actually get around to sorting and folding clothes. I find the thing that deters me the most is that the weekend is typically all about doing chores you couldn't get to during the week so you don't even get to do what you enjoy because you've got these piles and piles of laundry to get to. When I time it, it actually takes me a couple of hours to sort and fold laundry. I've tried listening to music to make it more enjoyable but overall I feel repelled from doing it. Anyone have any advice?

I was at Whole Foods, and they were out of the 365 Unscented Powder! I saw another comment in this sub from about 6mo ago saying it was being discontinued; I hope that’s not the case. They did have 365 sport, which I bought, and they also had this “Aunt Fannie’s Extra Strength laundry detergent powder,” in eucalyptus scent or fragrance free.

Here are the ingredients from their website: Sodium Carbonate, Sodium Borate, Sodium Percarbonate, Calcium Carbonate, Hydrated Silica, Sodium Citrate, Sodium Sulfate, Magnesium Carbonate, Cellulose, Sucrose, Magnesium Sulfate, Kaolin, Polyethylene Glycol, Deoxyribonuclease, Titanium Dioxide, Sodium Thiosulfate, Protease, Amylase, Mannanase

Are all those minerals purely for water softening? Nothing on that list appears to me to be a surfactant. But it does have DNAse and is fragrance free, so seemed worth a mention. I don’t remember the in-store price but it’s 19.99 for 44oz (supposedly 70 loads) on Amazon.

I’m doing a massive spa day with all of the bed linens in our house.

The first batch was mostly white pillowcases and the resulting water was 🤮. It’s going to take me about 6 batches to do everything, and that’s using 8 gallons of hot water in a cooler with Biz + Gear Guard. The soaked linens are then washed with liquid Tide F&G Odor Refresh + FEBU + Ammonia with citrus acid in the rinse cycle.

Here’s my question: after this is done, I read that basic good laundry protocol going forward means I should never have to do a spa day on our sheets again, right? Does this mean that the “grandma’s house” smell should be permanently gone from our sheets?

And if we have sensitive skin in our house, is a standard cycle enough to get all the product out? We have an LG stacked front loader. I run it heavy duty, hot water, 3 rinses. Our water is 50-100 ppm. So moderately hard. The first spa day batch I did still smelled slightly soapy, so I ran it on another wash with zero soap.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Hello all! Im new here. Stumbled across by accident and then got engrossed!

Im uk based and don’t recognise a lot of the products everyone is talking about in the group, however i now have a new found fear that my washing machine is dirty, my clothes arent getting clean and my detergent is just seasoning my clothes 😅

We are family of sensitive baby skinned souls so I always use Fairy soap pods + fabric conditioner, and what ever stain remover / vanish is on offer. Im also a bit partial to a bottle of tallow and ash now and again. We are in a super hard water area and im forever cleaning black gunk out of my detergent draw - this is also why I favour pods over powder.

I guess what my question is is that what products - easily available in the UK - are needed as staples for clean laundry / machines? Im 35 and feel like I’ve been washing clothes wrong my whole life 😭

begging for help at this point because i'm completely at my wits' end. please save me from my utter misery as i've been non-stop breaking out in rashes!

my normal laundry routine is to do three washes for each load: (1) first wash with detergent + hot water + 3 rinse cycles, (2) one cold water rinse on normal with vinegar, and then (3) a last quick wash rinse with cold water. the machine is an LG front load washer and i make sure to do a tub clean before each wash to get rid of any possible residue.

the problem is that i've become allergic to not only the usual "fragrance-free" suspects (e.g. tide), but also all of the recommendations below that are often suggested as alternatives. i basically break out immediately in eczema and huge patches after using any of these detergents:

• nellie's laundry soda (regular & baby)
• attitude fragrance-free liquid detergent (both regular & baby)
• eco max hypoallergenic laundry wash (no sulfates)
• any major "free/clean/hypoallergic brands) e.g arm & hammer, purex, downy, etc.

i'm constantly itchy and bleeding all of the time, and we suspect it's the laundry because the locations of the rashes (e.g. in a ring around the neck, exactly in the same area as the edges of underwear, absolutely no rashes in the arms because i only wear t-shirts that cut off right above the elbows). willing to try anything at this point as i'm completely desperate!

I have relatively hard water and use powder ariel or Tide + fabric rinse.

Which one of these two would you recommend? I have three kids and two dogs so stuff can get funky!

Would someone please post some pictures of what "trace suds" should look like on a front load washer so that I can see if I'm dosing my detergent correctly?

The ammout of pink/yellow/orange stains skyrocketed in last month,

So I repost my science based post on what causes and how to remove sunscreen stains

Okay let me explain better!! I’m 21, so I buy a lot of clothes from various ranges of quality and price. I love clothes so much and love being able to keep them nice. I’m small, so a lot of my stuff is just smaller and seems to fall apart even easier. I have some things with terrible quality materials and then items that are nicer materials.

How do I keep up with the washing instructions of things?! Different brands say different things and it’s just a lot to keep up with when doing laundry. I hate having to do multiple loads with few things in each just to wash things differently. It’s just too much! Any tips? Sorry if this is a silly post!

Shoutout to this community for helping me dial-in my laundry approach. Super grateful for the help. While I'm still fathoms away from being proficient in laundry chemistry, I've learned enough to be dangerous :). After a year of half-baked tests and countless detergent experiences I've found package that I am happy with for the majority of my laundry needs

Products I've replaced (off the top of my head)

• Whole Foods 365 Sport 
• Febu (without DNAse) 
• Tide Liquids (multiple)
• Tide Mountain Spring Powder
• Tide Plus Bleach Powder
• Ariel 2x Double Powder
• Kirkland Signature Ultra Clean HE Laundry Detergent Pacs 
• Kirkland Signature Ultra Clean Free & Clear Liquid 
• Kirkland Signature Oxi Powder
• Persil Pods 
• Persil Advanced Clean Liquids
• Arm & Hammer Liquid (multiple)
• Dropps
• Biz

Considerations for my Daily Driver detergent package 

1. Cleaning Power
2. Simplicity & Versatility
3. Fragrance
4. Ecosystem (easily enhanced without to much functional overlap with other products)
5. Simple purchase process

What I landed on

• German 🇩🇪 Formulation Persil Powder (Universal & Color)
• Downy Rinse and Refresh - Free & Gentle Unscented
• Garame Gear Guard 
• Whole Foods 365 Stain Remover (rarely needed)

Why I chose this as my daily laundry package 

• It's a powerful, versatile, and easy.
  • My partner can keep up with the routine without having to follow a chart or call me at work :)
  • It covers 95% of my day-to-day of my everyday laundry needs
• I have a personal connection to Persil's fragrance profile. Finishing it off with the unscented fabric rinse gives me nice hint of the fragrance without it being overpowering
• it’s predictable and reliable. Dosing is a breeze.
• Relatively easy to purchase online

The other 5%. Sensitive skin, sensitive Fabrics, misc, and a to-go solution

• Tide Free & Gentle Odor Refresh Liquid
• Whole Foods 365 Oxygen Whitening Powder
• Citric Acid
• Tide EVO (my favorite travel detergent) 
• Lysol Laundry Sanitizer 
• Miele WoolCare
• Whole Foods 365 Powder (retiring soon)
• Carbona Color Grabber

Wishlist

• Febu with DNase

Happy to share my personal experiences with everyone if at all helpful. Also, open to any thoughts and suggestions as I'm still learning myself

I use oxi clean and this liquid detergent. I want to stop using fabric softener so I just bought citric acid to use instead. I would value your opinion as to whether or not this detergent is any good, and can I use oxi clean in the wash while also using citric acid in my rinse dispenser or will that damage my clothes. Our water is very hard, is a tsp of citric acid enough?

Has anyone seen this anywhere besides Costco? I don’t have a Costco membership.

What is everyone doing regarding washing dark clothes that you don’t want faded? Are the things to be concerned about hot water, oxygen bleach, and optical brighteners? I use biz on all my loads because I tend to use liquid tide detergent. But so many of my black clothes are faded now and I don’t want them to get worse/ it happen to my new dark clothing.

I'm preparing to overhaul (and hopefully simplify) my laundry routine. I got citric acid, and I have a box each of borax and washing soda that I would like to use up. Can either/both be used to create sodium citrate for the wash cycle? I know our water is hard but don't have numbers yet (but getting a test kit today!).

wanted to let everybody who has been having a hard time finding it recently know that if you buy four on Amazon, you get 33% off the entire order.

Hello Everyone,

I'd appreciate any help on shedding some light on laundry issues with my 3 month old Electrolux Laundry Centre.

Model ELTE760CAW

https://www.electrolux.ca/en/Laundry-Appliances/Washing-Machines/stacked-washer-and-dryer/ELTE760CAW/

Mustiness - I was having a problem with a little lingering mustiness in the clothes at first, and tried running the cleaning cycle as per the manual a few times (using a bit of regular bleach)

The mustiness didn't really completely go away even after re-washing white towels with bleach.

I use TIDE FREE AND GENTLE, also tried using OxiClean powder in the bottom of the drum which didn't do much. I normally do my whites in hot water, colours in warm.

DULLING - Then my color clothes started getting dull, but my whites started taking on a darkish grey I can't get out. (all 100% cotton)

You can see my examples up in the pics.

I tried re-washing and re-bleaching the whites to no avail. I reduced the amount of soap I was using after being recommended that.

SYNTHETICS - The weirdest thing is that some of my synthetic fabrics starting completely changing color as well! I DID NOT bleach them, or even do them right after a bleach cycle.

If you look at the 4th photo, there are two pairs on underwear. The ones on the right used to be the same whiteness as the ones on the left! (Except for the leg ribbing, those were always a darker colour. (87% Nylon / 13% Elastine)

In the last photo, the shirt was part of a set, and the grey underwear below are what the shirt used to look like. yes - the tan shirt used to be that grey color. (87% Nylon / 13% Elastine)

The changing color issue has been somewhat intermittent for some reason. I should also mention I don't have any new clothes recently - everything has been owned and washed many times.

I did discover that the installer put the drain hose too far down the standpipe, so I set it back to the recommended 7 inches. I'm now afraid to wash clothes in case this still happens.

Do you think it's a lemon and I should get a replacement?

Any recommendations are greatly appreciated!

Hello wise launderers. Does anyone have any suggestions for an easy way to remove this adhesive? I began scraping it off, but it's super tedious and not very effective, so I am hoping there is a better way. It went through the washer and came out like this. Luckily I noticed it before it went in the dryer.

My husband forgot a broken ballpoint pen in his pocket and it popped inside the washing machine, I tried to wash away the ink with alcohol, but it bled all over, and instead of actually getting rid of the stain, it just spread it! What do I do? 😭 I tried the pat pat method, but none of the stains disappeared

I’ve really enjoyed getting into laundry science and this sub is a daily read for me now. I have made a lot of changes and added things to my laundry routine, but I still feel like I have a lot to learn.
I feel like everyone has one or two things that really make the difference for them, and I want to know what that is for everyone.
I want to share everything I learn with everyone I meet but have started asking people if they want some laundry science…unfortunately, the answer is almost always a variation of no thanks, so in case you need it, permission to nerd out granted!

Howdy, laundry nerd fam! Need y'all's help bc I am having extreme difficulty using the Lipase List spreadsheet on my phone.

I'm looking for an enzyme laundry booster that's unscented, no OBAs, and no oxygen bleach to go with my 365 powder.

In order of importance:

1. Unscented

2. No OBAs (to protect darks)

3. No (or very little) oxygen bleach (to protect darks)

Notes:

1. I have Dirty Labs for DNase.

2. I have Oxyclean Free

I'm neurodivergent and am trying to systematize laundry similar to:

1. Add detergent detergent

2. Add primary booster (the one I'm looking for above)

3. If whites, lights, or colors, add oxi

4. If load is unusually gross/stinky, add Dirty Labs

5. Add citric acid to rinse

6. Result: Clean clothes my nose will confirm are clean on wash day, while wearing (no odor rebloom), and from a drawer weeks later (no dirty washer smell that appears during storage, been there)

Bc I'll be asked: I wash on a hot/extra hot cotton cycle with an extra rinse in an LG front load that I clean every 2-3 weeks, swapping between citric acid and chlorine bleach cleanings. I keep that washer smelling and looking *fresh* y'all. I tumble dry most items, and I air dry delicates.I use 365 powder, 1 scoop, in very soft water.

So.... Back to that booster and the Lipase List I'm having no luck working on my phone: Do we know of an unscented enzyme booster w/o OBAs and no (or very little) oxygen bleach (to protect my darks)?

So there were some stains on this baseball cap that was a gift from a friend and handwashing wasn’t doing the trick. I then researched online that you could put it in the top rack of a dishwasher on a gentle cycle with no drying, so that is what I did. I then promptly forget that although everything else was likely dishwasher safe, the leather badge is not. I took it out halfway through the cycle to find the badge very faded and dulled in color. is there anything i can do to fix it and restore its color?

I have a dug well, so very hard water. The water is filtered at various stages, and goes through a UV light treatment as well. I use a front loading washer.

I’ve noticed my clothes come out smelling funky. I’ve cleaned my washer, the black rubber icky seal, and the trap. I also use a laundry disinfectant in the rinse (which helped quite a bit). I stopped using fabric softener because I heard it can compound the issue (no change and I miss the fresh smell). Adding various combinations of vinegar or baking soda in the washer or dispenser has not been successful. However, even with hot water, oxyclean and HE detergent, on the heavy load setting, my towels are funky smelling.

I’ve read using washing soda for hard water enhances the enzyme cleaning capacity of laundry detergents. Is this true or woo woo from the “make your own detergent” folks.