Let’s face it: kids are dirty. They’re messy and unpredictable—especially when it comes to food spillage. (So are adults, but for the sake of this article we’re going to blame the kids!)
The result: a daily accumulation of a metric ton of dirty clothes. Laundry up to our eyeballs. Clothes covered in who-knows-what that need to be washed because little Billy won’t wear anything to school other than his favourite Star Wars shirt and wee Sally can’t be seen in anything other than her purple jeans. Thus, we do a lot of laundry (and suffice to say, we use a lot of detergent).
Because we care about whether or not we’re making the right decision in the grocery store, we decided to test out the gamut of detergents and see if one actually did shine above the others.
So we let each of our three young volunteers (Tracie’s two kids and Jennifer’s one) loose on a clean, white cotton t-shirt, armed with mustard, ketchup and chocolate sauce—the trifecta of children’s messy fingers. They certainly did a number on these t-shirts, as you can see below.
We then washed each shirt separately, three different staff members taking home a shirt each to wash with the detergent they thought would be the winner. One person used a no-name brand (along with a pre-treatment and bleach), one used a very popular name brand and one used an eco-friendly detergent.
Our findings:
Shirt Number One: Washed in a No-Name Detergent (with a pre-treatment and with a tiny amount of bleach)
This shirt plainly came clean-ish. It’s white parts are definitely white (thanks to the bleach), but there are a lot of spots where you can see ketchup, chocolate and mustard quite easily. Even with a pre-treatment the no-name brand detergent couldn’t cut the mustard (or the chocolate or the ketchup), unfortunately.
Shirt Number Two: Washed in a Popular Name-Brand Detergent
This shirt is completely yellow, if you can’t tell from looking at the photo, even the seams are yellowed. We assume this is the result of the mustard, but really we thought this well-known name brand detergent would fare better than to simply spread the dirt around. It did seem to get out most of the ketchup and chocolate though, but really this result was both surprising and extremely disappointing.
Shirt Number Three: Washed in an Eco-Friendly Detergent
This shirt fared the best in the eco-friendly detergent. The chocolate and ketchup are completely gone, the t-shirt is clean and there are only very faded spots of mustard left on it (mustard really does stain, so we suggest a pre-treatment and allowing it to soak for a bit prior to washing). We’d also bet we could get those stains out with another wash if we tried hard enough.
Are you anxious to know our winning brand of detergent? Are you shocked to read that it’s Seventh Generation’s Natural 4x Liquid Laundry Detergent? This non-toxic liquid laundry detergent is biodegradable, hypoallergenic and contains no dyes or synthetic fragrances.
Read more:
- A must-read for all parents: great tips for keeping kids’ rooms clean!
- Our top 20 uses for baking soda—this simple powder does it all.
- Going green? Here are some simple ways to detox and “green clean” your home.
