I have always been a fan of TIDE laundry detergent but face it, it’s become so ridiculously high priced, who the heck can afford to buy it, especially when you do laundry frequently. I began to test different detergents on my own, I know that there are different things that factor in when doing a “test” like this, so I took two packs of plain white, cotton tee-shirts, each pack had five shirts. Since my test subject wears them everyday, I used those as the “test clothing”, any that might have ended up with a stain that wasn’t of the norm, I would exclude, I tested from just everyday wear (deodorant stains or pit stains, etc.).
I tried what was left of my TIDE on one and as I knew it would, it cleaned well enough, I can’t really say as far as smell because I use fabric softener. I tested ERA, it didn’t clean as well and man, it made us itch really bad, it did clean the shirt up but not as good as the TIDE did, not even close. My next test was using the regular ALL (dark blue bottle), it cleaned better than the ERA but still not as good as the tide did, perhaps it’s because I have sensitive skin, but that made me itch as well. Next up was GAIN, the smell was great, not that it matters when using fabric softener, but still it was a nice bonus, it didn’t make us itch and it cleaned just as well as the TIDE did, better yet, the price was much less than the TIDE. The next time that I was in Sam’s Club I noticed that they had their detergent and fabric softener on sale, for the price I could not resist so I bought both of them to try out. Member’s Mark ( Sam’s Club brand) Ultimate Clean liquid laundry detergent. I was floored after washing the clothes in it and seeing the tee-shirt, I actually washed another one to see if I could have been mistaken, I wasn’t. The Sam’s detergent was not only as good as the TIDE, it cleaned better! It didn’t cause any skin irritations or itching, it didn’t smell as nice as gain but the smell was okay too. The last test I conducted was using ALL Free & Clear with stain lifters, I didn’t expect it to be any different than the regular ALL detergent, I was wrong though. This ALL was the second best of them all, following the Sam’s Club detergent.
The money that you could save on laundry detergent is just hard to believe, it’s also hard to believe that any company could charge as much as they do for things like detergent. Try the Sam’s Club one on your clothes and you’ll be surprised, I got the huge bottle with the pump so it went a long way but when I went back to get more, the price had gone up, still nowhere in the ballpark as the others. It’s worth every penny for clean, decent smelling clothes that don’t make you itch or irritate your skin!
thesmartcritic 