Laundry detergents - what do you want?

[JRLT]

Hi all!

I posted this elsewhere, but thought that this might be a better place for it.

I'm a final year Chemical Engineering student and I'm currently doing a project on product design. The task is to design a tablet for people to do laundry and in order to assess what people want from their laundry detergents, I thought I'd ask YOU! It'd be great if you could try and address the following, but any information's good information:

-what your washing usually consists of - how dirty is it? what are the clothes? who are they being washed for?

-how do you do your washing? - what machine do you use? what settings do you use? what product(s) do you use?

-what do you like/dislike about the product(s) you use

-how do you buy the product(s) you use - where do you buy them from? how do you get them home?

Please don't be afraid to make seemingly small complaints about what you currently use - the more stuff I can find to refine and improve, the better!

• football kit, gym kit, school wear, day to day clothes, towels, etc. Ranges from hardly dirty to very pongy! Wash for me, dh and 2 kids

• use 6kg Hoover washing machine. Tend to use a 40 degree cycle and depending how dirty clothes are may use the time saving button and/or the faster wash setting. Sort into whites, darks and colours and will use a colour catcher sheet if I think colours will run.

• Use bio powder as the liquids made the machine slimy and left marks on the clothes so had to rewash them (Ariel, Daz, Persil - whichever brand is on offer). Also use fabric softner - chosen by how nice it smells in the bottle

• buy them from supermarket and drive to get them home which is handy as big box powders are heavy!

Thanks very much for your response!