A survey of commercial laundry detergents - how effective are they?: Part III: powders,liquids and hard water

The effectiveness of 42 detergents, 11 non-phosphate containing powdered detergents, 12 phosphate containing powdered detergents, 11 unbuilt liquid detergents and eight built liquid detergents, of varying formulations, in cleaning a standard soiled fabric in water of varying hardness was evaluated. Powdered detergents were found to be significantly affected only at very high water hardness levels. There was no significant difference between washing in warm and hot water for the liquid detergents, except for a melaleucaoil based detergent which performed significantly better in hot water. Increasing water hardness had no significant effect on liquid detergents. Powdered detergents performed better than liquid detergents in cleaning the standard soiled fabric. While no one detergent was significantly better than the others, in general, washing with detergents that contained phosphates did give somewhat better results in warm water. Detergents that contained bleach as an additive did not result in whiter fabric.