What detergents do you use?

[Windsorian]

Hello Mums,

I always get confused with how many clothes detergents to buy and because there's such a big choice I always end up grabbing the one that is nearer with no clue whatsoever.

Do you buy a specific detergents for each category, like whites, colours, dark , towels etc or do you use the same one? and do you go for liquid, pods or powder?

TIA

any bio powder for lights.
a colour powder for darks and a colour liquid black jeans and school jumpers (navy, so prone to fading)

Bio powder (whichever is on offer) for everything except woolens and jeans which get washed with Woolite or similar liquid

Own brand powder.
Standard bio for whites.
Colour powder for coloured/darks.

I have a bit of a thing for detergents .

Will usually have a powder (either bio or non bio) for whites, as these contain bleach.

A liquid (again bio or non) as they are good for pretreating and liquids work better on food/grease type stains (powder is better for mud/clay type stains).

A colour detergent (this is usually a liquid, as I believe they're phasing out colour powders).

Sometimes a wool detergent (although a non bio liquid can do this too - only thing a non bio liquid has that a wool detergent doesn't is optical brighteners, which depending on the colour of the wool is no big deal).

Seems a lot (but only 1 box of powder and 2 or 3 liquids). Only advice I would give is to NEVER just use a liquid detergent exclusively as, due to the lack of bleaching agents - it will lead to a slimy/mouldy build up in your machine and whites/lights will go dingy.

Oh do use the pods too - but only if the load is a full one - advantage of liquid and powder is the dose can be adjusted, a pod of course, cannot.

Oh to have a choice! DH has allergies so we can only use Surcare powder. I miss smells and choice in general.

I use this bio liquid for my clothes.

Aldi bio powder

Fairy non-bio powder every time. Not used a different one for 11 years.

I use Ecover Non Bio powder. I wouldn't change if you paid me!

I add their laundry bleach to white washing.

If I have stained clothes I soak them in the laundry bleach (managed to get black tyre marks off a tyre swing off white linen shirts!) and I've got their stain remover…but I hardly ever need to use it. I think I've used it once in the past 6 months. NBI have 3 kids, boys who play muddy sports and I do trail running.

I personally find the smells of nearly all normal washing stuff overwhelming. I can be stood next to someone and smell their washing powder. There is a popular one and I don't know what it is, but I hate it it..it smells fusty to me. This is a recent thing…washing powder wasn't so overpowering in the past.

But I have used Aldi in the past and actually the smell of that is fine!