Use Ecover but clothes still smell sweaty...is Ecover not really any good?

[OlderNotWiser]

I just wondered since Im finding that t shirt armpits just dont seem to get clean enough and can still smell of old deodrant/armpit smell after a wash, when they are put back on. My washing machine is newish so shouldn't be that, so just wondered if the detergent isnt up to the job. I live in a very hard water area, dont know if that makes a difference. Any tips on removing smells from clothes...? TIA for any ideas.

Cheap red dye is very volatile, I agree.

I wash all reds together and sometimes do a 40° and sometimes a 60° wash (lots of red socks in our household). But quite honestly our clothes don't smell of sweat to start off with.

I can only use Surcare, but seems to work at 40 degrees.

LOL Anna! Yep, cheap and smelly just about sums us up in this household!

Ariel is now marketing a liquid detergent, anna, that is supposed to wash clothes at 15 degrees.

i've not had a washing machine that washes at that low a temp here in the UK.

My previous machine had a 15° wash but the current one doesn't do lower than 30°. It does a proper 30° wash, for whites etc, though, not just a delicates wash.

The trouble with washing at low temperatures is that it doesn't kill germs and it wrecks your machine in the long term - it gets clogged up with grease. Hot water is fab at dissolving grease.

i agree, anna.

for sure, clothes don't get very sweaty up here.

for the most part, it's pretty cold and we're just not very sweaty people.

but i still don't wash at lower than 40 degrees unless it's some wool jumper or my bras or that.

the machine only goes down to 30 as it is.

LOL at not sweating much in the Frozen North .

Our clothes get very grubby from all that inner city pollution but aren't very sweaty either - in part, of course, because we have to wash the grime off so often...

Thanks for all the comments, I think I will try washing hotter for a bit as well as using another detergent.

Bit flummuxed as to how to not have smelly clothes in the first place tho...I now have an image of you, Anna, wafting serenely through life with never a bead of sweat on your brow...I want your life

Older, I also use a product from Lakeland called HG Engineer every quarter to clean out the machine.

But you can also do a wash with a cup of soda crystals at 90 followed by a wash with a cup of white vinegar at 90.

Once a quarter.

To get the gunk out.

I alternate between powder and liquid with my loads, but I'm a bit anal about laundry and getting the clothes clean and just so and smelling nice.

No, not much sweating up here. DS was a bit sweaty after he was born, but he seems to not be so sweaty anymore. Might be because we forgot to ring Calor and order more gas for the tank and now it's down to under 15% so we've just been using electric space heaters till Calor opens again tomorrow.

It's been a chilly Autumn, too.

Thanks expat, I really do need to give the machine a clean now and then so will give that a go.

Cheers all

I put about 50ml of soda crystals in each wash. It softens the water and helps the detergent wash better even when I use less. Smells better, too, I've noticed.

I've tried Ecover and think it's rubbish though. I only use liquid as I suspected the powder wasn't dissolving quite right and leaving oily marks on my clothes (what causes that?). I do my laundry at higher temps as well, but it's usually quite dirty.

I've used Ecover liquid (recommended by my gynaecologist...) on my clothes for a couple years and it works well at 40, but is crap on nappies - they still smell! So nappy loads get Ariel/Persil plus Nappisan and are usually 40 but sometimes 60.

Might try soda crystals instead - I guess the nappies will only get ickier once A gets bigger and starts weaning...

I use Ecover or tescos version.

Washes fine on 40degree, along with conditioner clothes smell nice.

Do somtimes get a sweaty smell when I am ironing shirts, from underarm on my fitted shirts that I do tend to sweat more in. Its fine once cooled. Had same problem with other washing stuff anyway.

I found that Ecover liquid is much better. Now I use the liquid (non-bio) I don't have any of the stale smell lingering probs that I did with the Ecover powder. If you look carefully at many of the Tesco and Sainsbury own brand 'green' products you often find that they actually aren't that green at all...still have high level of surfactants and ionic compunds I think it is!

I recently found a liquid called Ecos which I get from ethicalsuperstore.com and it's fab - got a light lavendar smell and I much prefer it to Ecover.

I heard somewhere that Ecover actually aren't all that ethical, but I can't find any evidence for it so maybe it was just baloney.

I use Simply washing pods (you can get them in big Sainsbury's) with a smidge of Vanish.

The laundry bleach in Ecover was bleaching all my clothes.

Clothes at 40, bedding and towels at 60.

Ecover liquid is much better than the powder IME (which is extensive - veteran of many cloth nappies). AFAIK Ecover's environmental impact is reasonable - they occasionally get slagged off by vegans because they test some products on water fleas, or something (and also because of the way they describe their animal testing policy, in which they are honest about the fact that they can't always guarantee that none of the ingredients has been tested on animals by a supplier to their suppliers....).

I had a disaster with the Simply pods when I used them on a delicates wash, they bleached a patch of colour out of a new linen dress. Have been OK on normal washes, but I'd handle with care if you try them.

My preference is for Clearspring liquid which washes really well, smells nice, and isn't pricey (you can get it in 1l bottles as well as the 5l ones!). It is made in Britain, so it doesn't have as many 'laundry miles' as Ecover.

I use the Ecover delicate liquid on my wools etc

Ecover does not work except in hot washes. But then it is really the heat that is primarily working, not the actual detergent. I find the same for their dishwashing liquid. Rubbish, IMO.

We use Clearspring liquid or Faith in Nature liquid, they seem to work ok (and we work outside & get seriously grubby). I keep a reserve box of Ariel bio powder to soak really filthy things occasionally (usually dd's very pale coloured tops that have got stained).

I've had v. bad experience of ecover with cloth nappies - the nappies went really stinky and soap nuts at 60 didn't shift it so I then bought a small pack of Le Chat and lo and behold the nappies no longer stink.