Remind me- what do you put in with a whites wash to improve it?!

[Erebus]

I cannot for the life of me remember what common-or-garden substance you put in; if it goes in the powder compartment or straight into the machine (front loader) and whether you use it with normal powder as well?

Help!

I usually use Ecover bleach to get whites whiter. But I've heard on the grapevine that you can use soda crystals to brighten whites (a tablespoon with each wash, put the crystals in the powder compartment). I haven't had a go at doing this yet, so can't comment on how well it works. But I'm going to start doing this to make our washing powder go further. There is a leaflet on the DriPak wesbite about how to use soda crystals around the home here

As said previously, soda crystals - tbsp ish in the powder compartment works brilliantly.

So you put the soda crystals in with the powder?

However, we already have a water softener, so is this doing the same job? Do I have to accept that my whites are as white as they're going to get?

I use Ecover bleach too, it's pretty cheap and does a brilliant job. The very first whites wash might not look that different, but if you use it every time you soon see a huge difference - DS's school polo shirts are gleaming.

Where do you put your bleach, laydeez? And powder, presumably?

I'm not too sure about the soda crystals TBH. I think they are multipurpose in that they will soften water and remove stains too. I've shifted some pretty horrific coffee stains off of old mugs, so imagine that they would whiten whites too. I've been a bit nervous to use them at PILs house (where I'm staying) as they hawk eye me with anything that goes into their washing machine. And I think they would be very suspicious if I started spooning soda crystals in even though I'm desperate to run a maintenance wash because their machine is very smelly

Ecover bleach on the other hand will get yours whites up white after a few times through. We had some very grubby looking t-shirts and towels in the past and these came up lovely after a couple of washes. In our old home we always used to put Ecover bleach in (again, MIL is suspicious so have stopped) with the white wash.

With towels in the bleach compartment on the relevant hottest wash; with normal cycle just in with the powder / liquid. x

Where is the bleach compartment, Formerly? I have always just put a sprinkle of bleach powder in with the normal washing powder tablet.

My machine has three compartments in the powder drawer. The left-hand one (as you look at it) is for the normal washing powder. The middle one (I think!) is for fabric softener, which I don't use. The right-hand one is for 'pre-wash', and I sometimes put Napisan in here if I'm washing some faecally soiled baby/toddler stuff Do you use that one for bleach powder, and set the machine on a cycle with pre-wash.

Sorry, this is a long, boring post, isn't it.

No, it's Housekeeping! Nothing boring about that !

Yes, where is the bleach compartment??!

Oh, then I've been putting the bleach in the pre-wash compartment and then setting the machine to do a pre-wash for towels. I can't remember the way round i used to do this in my old machine though. I don't think you can go too far wrong just bunging in with the liquid / powder. :)