Top-Load Detergent Powder

Details

A powder for a top-loading tub and for the plain bucket soak that still does most of the laundry in this country. IS 4955 is the BIS specification for a household laundry detergent powder, and it grades a powder on active matter, the percentage that is actually surfactant. This one is declared at 18 percent, measured by cation titration to the method in Annex B of that standard. Almost no pack in the market prints the figure at all, and that is where the lie lives, because a powder at half the active matter simply needs twice the dose. A bag at Rs 130 a kilo that wants 80 g a bucket costs Rs 10.40 a wash. This one at Rs 249 a kilo wants 40 g and costs Rs 9.96. Cost per kilo is the number the market advertises because it is the number that flatters it, so we print the dose and the cost per wash instead, on the pack and here. The second thing worth naming is the optical brightener, because nearly every mainstream powder uses one. It is a fluorescent dye that binds to the fibre and re-emits ultraviolet as blue light, so a grey shirt reads white to the eye. It removes no soil, it makes cloth look cleaner than it is, it accumulates wash after wash, it rinses into the water, and it is a known skin sensitiser. We leave it out, and the consequence is honest: a white shirt washed here comes out as white as it actually is.

• Full surfactant system named and it adds up: sodium linear alkylbenzene sulphonate 12 percent, C12-15 alcohol ethoxylate 7 EO at 4 percent, sodium C12-14 alkyl polyglucoside 2 percent, total active matter 18 percent
• Enzymes with figures: protease 0.4 percent and amylase 0.15 percent of the finished powder, both as coated granulate, for haldi, dal, curd, sweat and collar soil
• Builder is soda ash 22 percent and sodium citrate 5 percent. Phosphate is zero, and the position is worth stating plainly: India has no ban on phosphate in household detergent, which is exactly why so many powders still carry sodium tripolyphosphate, and why zero here is a decision rather than compliance
• Measured pH 10.4 in a 1 percent solution at 27 C. Laundry powder is alkaline and this one says so
• No optical brightener, no chlorine bleach, no phosphate, no dye, no blue speckle, no perfume
• No preservative, because a dry powder does not need one
• Foam height 150 mm at 30 seconds, 1 g per litre at 30 C, by the Ross-Miles method, which is high foam and correct for a bucket and a tub. Do not put this in a front loader. The front-load powder in this range is the low-foam one and it exists for a reason
• Dissolves in cold tap water, so nothing settles as grit at the bottom of the tub or dries onto a dark kurta
• No perfume, so clothes come out smelling of nothing, and a good many people read no smell as not clean. That is the trade and we would rather make it than leave a fragrance on a pillowcase
• Enzymes are proteins and they denature above about 60 C, so a boiling wash wastes the part of this powder you paid most for. Wash at 30 to 40 C and give it a 20 to 30 minute soak