Opening washing clothes products.. It's now completely ridiculous.

[Scissor]

I understand you don't want children eating washing products but I'm only early 50's still have teenagers, with hypermobility, I have used garden secateurs to chop through the side of a box of washing tabs because I cannot at all open the sodding box.

This drives me insane too , I've got athritic hands and , I live alone , I've got stabby with these things before now too

give it to a toddler.
it's allmost guaranteed they will be able to open it.

fwiw we mainly use powder, partly due to this reason.

I would have thought personally that 'Don't feed Ariel pods to three year olds' was pretty bloody obvious, but there you go, people don't just seem to need to be told this, they need to have it made almost impossible (until they decant the tabs into a big glass jar as per influencers, along with stinky perfume beads) for anybody to get into the things.

OMG OP I could have written this myself, the new style boxes that you have to press in at the sides then gently lift off? Drives me nuts, I end up tearing them open anyway - both DCs never had any interest in gobbling them!

I completely agree.

I get the mail order Smol pods, which come in the sort of 'child-safe' packaging that requires a degree in product engineering to work out.

I don't have any children. There are no small children in my family. None of my friends have small children. The only way a small child would be in my house would be if it had broken in.

Yet still I am subjected to this nonsense with no way to opt out...

I use liquid directly in the drum in a ball thingy.
I tried to open a box of fairy pods and ended up launching the box across the utility room in temper.

I agree with you, the obvious answer to the problem is not to make the blasted things look like colourful sweets in the first place, but of course manufacturers could not possibly do that.

YANBU at all.

I've often said I don't know how elderly/disabled people manage.

Use the liquid where you put the cap in the drum. Pods are bad for your machine. Liquid cheaper too.

I cant disagree with you, however YABU using washing tabs… get a big box of powder from Aldi or Lidl, it cleans clothes really well, is cheap and the boxes are really easy to open.

I swear I now require a full-on industrial toolkit in the kitchen just to open some packaging. YANBU

My DH was trying to open a box of Fairy tabs a few weeks ago, and shouted "FUCK YOU, BABY THEO!!!" 🤣🤣🤣

I use big box powder. It’s easy, just a pull tab (and the box is recyclable 👍)

Costco sell laundry powder in very large tubs.

Liquid makes the seal develop a black slime in my machine. It was fine after I went back to powder.

This was part of the reason I went back to using powder.

Getting into Fort Knox would have been easier than opening one of those boxes.

I also think that powder doesn't gunge the machine up as badly as those tablets.

Know what you mean but when I actually decided to read the opening instructions, they were just tricky, rather than impossible!!

YANBU! My Smol pods that I get delivered have to hack the packaging to bits with scissors but they do get posted through the door so maybe it's to stop dogs eating them?

Just use powder - it's better for the environment and cheaper and equally good at cleaning clothes. Why buy something you can't get into because it's got totally unnecessary plastic packaging round it?

I switched to powder because it's just a cardboard box, much easier to open.

YANBU

we used the smol pods for a while until they blocked our machine outlet pipe but I ended up ripping the boxes open every time!

We switched back to big boxes of powder which are dead easy to open and completely recyclable.

I've got friends whose daughter found and ate one and had to be rushed to a&e.

It must be annoying but for washing powder, there are plenty of alternatives.

I do think a lot other packaging is ridiculous- my Gran has arthritis and she basically has to stab packaging open with knives.

Ah yes I remember the good old days when folk had the sense to put non eatables on a high shelf away from small hands.
Nowadays nobody seems to be able work anything out for themselves!!

Another convert to powder here. I used pods for years but changed to powder for cost reasons. Turns out it cleans my clothes well, doesn't gunk up the machine, the box is recyclable and it works out proper cheap. We (as consumers) always get the blame for plastic waste etc but we didn't design or sell all of the shite that damages the environment - that's a rant for a separate day.

Ew does it. Im using power and liquid alternating on what's on offer. Might stick to power then if thats the case. X