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adrian_turtleCan anyone recommend a laundry detergent? If I were looking for something realistic, I suspect I would have found it already, and I hate shopping, so I turn to the accumulated experience of the group (such as it is).
1) No horrible smells. I don't have skin-sensitive allergies or asthma, but some perfumes are migraine triggers, so I'm looking for a minimally-perfumed product. It doesn't need to be completely perfume-free, but stronger scents to tend to be more of a risk. The kind with extra strong fragrance, or encapsulated fragrances, that advertise how their odor will persist for days, even weeks, are worst.
2) It needs to dissolve in an old front-loading washing machine. I like to have a big economy-size box of detergent in my apartment, and carry a small bag of powder down to the washing machine in the basement. This becomes a waste of time if the powder never dissolves. Or if the only way to make the powder dissolve is to fill the washing machine with such hot water that the clothes shrink (and then the cold rinse water makes the detergent powder precipitate out on the clothes, anyhow.)
3) It needs to get clothes clean. This is embarrassingly relevent. In the last week alone, I've gotten ink, grass, mud, blood, tomato sauce, mortar, oil, and rust on the (relatively) nice clothes I wear to work. That's not counting the shirt I'm considering a total loss because of a cellulosic dye spill. Why do so many laundry pre-treatments say not to use them on khaki, anyhow?
4) I need to be able to get the container open. This is not trivial, if we're talking about liquids. I was in a local store recently, trying to investigate scents, and trying to talk myself around to the possibility that a liquid detergent might be the only way to find something soluble enough.
I found a frightening number of containers that I simply could not open. I don't know if it's spill-proofing or child-proofing, but it's daunting even with tools. So I'm back to looking for a soluble powder, if I can find something effective.
1) No horrible smells. I don't have skin-sensitive allergies or asthma, but some perfumes are migraine triggers, so I'm looking for a minimally-perfumed product. It doesn't need to be completely perfume-free, but stronger scents to tend to be more of a risk. The kind with extra strong fragrance, or encapsulated fragrances, that advertise how their odor will persist for days, even weeks, are worst.
2) It needs to dissolve in an old front-loading washing machine. I like to have a big economy-size box of detergent in my apartment, and carry a small bag of powder down to the washing machine in the basement. This becomes a waste of time if the powder never dissolves. Or if the only way to make the powder dissolve is to fill the washing machine with such hot water that the clothes shrink (and then the cold rinse water makes the detergent powder precipitate out on the clothes, anyhow.)
3) It needs to get clothes clean. This is embarrassingly relevent. In the last week alone, I've gotten ink, grass, mud, blood, tomato sauce, mortar, oil, and rust on the (relatively) nice clothes I wear to work. That's not counting the shirt I'm considering a total loss because of a cellulosic dye spill. Why do so many laundry pre-treatments say not to use them on khaki, anyhow?
4) I need to be able to get the container open. This is not trivial, if we're talking about liquids. I was in a local store recently, trying to investigate scents, and trying to talk myself around to the possibility that a liquid detergent might be the only way to find something soluble enough.
I found a frightening number of containers that I simply could not open. I don't know if it's spill-proofing or child-proofing, but it's daunting even with tools. So I'm back to looking for a soluble powder, if I can find something effective.
