In an effort to try to find things I could use on my ailing mom's clothes and on ours, my list is huge. I have just about every low sudsing or HE detergent you can readily buy in the US. Hold on to your hats...this may take a while. Powders: Tide HE Tide HE w/ downy Charlie's Soap Country Save Biokleen All Tempurature Sears Ultra Plus Stain Fighter Sears Ultra Plus w/Oxi Cheer Brightclean Cheer Brightclean free and sensitive Gain HE Fresh Start Liquids: Tide HE Original Scent Tide HE Coldwater Tide HE Coldwater Free and sensitive Tide HE/ downy Gain HE Original scent Gain HE Island Fresh Biokleen All tempurature Misc.: Soap Nuts Fabric Softeners: Downy April fresh Liquid and sheets Gain Island fresh Liquid and sheets Gain Original fresh liquid Purex lavendar and cotton liquid Final touch liquid Suavitel Field of Flowers liquid and sheets(aka Cuddly in some countries) Suavitel Morning sun liquid and sheets Suavitel Aroma sensations jasmine & stargazer lily Bounce outdoor fresh sheets Bounce fresh linen sheets bounce unscented sheets Store brand Unscented sheets Additives: Borax Washing Soda Baking Soda Tide stain release granuals Store brand & Sun Oxi bleach powders Cholorine bleach Most items were bought in the last month and a half. Some items purchased are not listed as they were given away to others cause they made all of us break out including mom and not too mention I didn't need all the things I had tried. Some of you may remember me telling you about the laundry issues I was having while taking care of my mom. I ended up going back to Charlie's and using Sears and some fab softeners depending on what was needed. She declined shortly there afeter. Her decline caused serious odor issues and Charlie's was not cutting it even with three washes, and that included using additives and chlorine bleach. The sears didn't make a dent in it either. I was gonna try some Henkel Persil, but didn't want to spend that much just to try it. Ironically, I ended up spending even more just trying to find something locally that would work, and washing a load of laundry 4 times was unacceptable. It was really that bad. I ended up buying whatever I could find on sale that I had not tried already to counteract the odor while hoping we wouldn't itch like crazy. Mind you I already had a stash of things I had tried prior. With everything I bought the only thing that ended up working to get rid of the odor in one wash was the friggin soap nuts. However,although soap nuts rocked at getting out the odors it did nothing for my kids stained clothes. Mom passed on the 7th of May, another irony. Now I have all these laundry products I have to use up. I have already donated all that others would take and I refuse to waste money. My sister said to hold on to the Gain as she would take it when she ran out, but that still leaves everything else. I've been slowly experimenting with amounts and combinations to see what I can get away with. I figured some of them out so they are slowly getting used up. One surprising developement was so far no one has had a problem with the Suavitel even though it is pretty strong smelling, it was the one fabric softener my mom could not stand, but doesn't bother the rest of us. Another of Life's irony. Go figure. I will still try to give away as much as I can until I get back to my favorite. Anyway, that is my list and my tail of laundry and Life's irony. I'll be happy when I'm back to just Charlie's again. I'm the type who likes to keep things simple.

I have hard water and used many detergents, dry and liquid. Did not experinced deposits left anywhere in the washer but I always use hot or sanitary and extra rinses. Did not notice difference in between powder or liquid other then I have tendency to spill over the liquid. I always put all detergent right in the drum so I never clean the dispenser. I had white film/ residue once in the corner of my gasket after using roma and zote. It did go away after couple of washes. I love Persil but the cost for now forced me to look for cheap stuff so I bought roma and loved it, tried focca, ariel, well I mixed all of it together plus other leftover powders and now using this mix. Cascade works as a boost too. CS did not work for me and I would never use STPP. It seems too harsh for the machines. I don't use bleach either. I hate Tide w/ passion. It suds up like crazy and leaks from the bottom of one washer.Vinegar in the rinse and prewash helps too.

I had to come back and thank you for the heads up on the Foca and the Out White Brite, Tibbie. I found both at my local Walmart. Like you, I have very sensitive skin and have unfortunately passed that along to DD, who is home from college for the Summer. No allergy problems with either so far. I did a load of all whites with both the Foca and WB, although not presoaking them and, as you'd mentioned, they came out noticeably whiter! We're on a shared well here in our mountain community. As the minerals are very concentrated, we all have R/O (reverse osmosis) water conditioners for our drinking water but it would waste too much of our valuable water to use it for everything. We also have individual septic fields, so using bleach to keep our whites from getting dingy is not an option. My Tide has helped a lot, but the Foca and White Brite have whitened everything up significantly more! Thanks for taking the time to tell us all about them. I had no idea!

I used to live in a hard water area up till 6-7 years ago, I used powders than also without a problem. Sure there was much less suds but suds arnt an indicator of the detergent working. I did however add a tiny bit more detergent at that time. Its true though hard water makes it harder for detergent to work...STPP will solve peoples hard water issues. I don't know aa, I live in a soft water area, powders are almost obsolete here. Really irritates me. I've heard a lot of people across the country complaining powders are hard to find.I have a feeling the day will come when powders will be a thing of the past, maybe every 10 years P&G will produce a Anniversary Edition of one of the Tide offerings in a small box with a ridiculously high price tag. I can't understand why jugs of liquid detergent that are a large amount of water is preferable to ship. Thats another thing some day the liquids will probable come in a tiny 4 ounce bottle with directions to add 32 ounces if water to it. Lol. Ya powders are hard to find.