20 Best Detergents For Hard Water (2023 Updated)

We have been using original (boxed powder) Tide detergent for over 40 years, but I’m afraid we just can’t handle this new scent anymore. My husband has been saying to me that he noticed and felt and smelled something different with our Tide and I told him it was his imagination.

I have never been any fan of any scents/fragrances mostly due to my asthma, but I was used to the original (old) Tide. Our granddaughter helped us find this: Recently, we updated the formula for our Tide Original Powder, adding freshness technology for a nice scent during the laundry process and more scent after the clothes dry.

Our testing and research showed us this was a great addition. A PERFUME SYSTEM UPGRADE? So many people have so many different allergies and so many establishments are trying to adopt fragrance-free policies.

We understand that many folks like to smell like a bottle of fragrance and that’s why there’s Axe and Gain laundry detergent and other potent options. Couldn’t you have kept your foo-foo fragrances in your other products/models and LEFT ORIGINAL TIDE ALONE?? PLEASE GO BACK TO THE WAY THIS HAS BEEN FORMULATED FOR THE LAST FEW DECADES.

We have been soooooo disappointed in your re-formulation the last several months. Make it Tide ORIGINAL Powder Laundry Detergent again :-).

For the past couple decades, Tide Original has been the only laundry detergent I’ve been able to use that didn’t make me sick due to rare autoimmune disorders and fragrance allergies. The original sent was mild enough that it didn’t trigger any major reactions, and clothes after washed and dried did not have any lingering scents.

Today I opened the new box thinking it was the same one I had grown to love. Right away I was shocked at the difference in fragrance. Thinking it was my imagination, I proceeded to do a couple loads.

The wet clothes had an unpleasant odor, and when dried was even worse. I am in process of re-washing with baking soda and odor remover for the third time to try and get the scent out of the clothes. I went from a love to hate relationship in the blink of an eye.

I’ve been practically in tears since I just spent $60 on two of the giant boxes, and don’t know what I’m going to do to find another detergent. It’s not easy when you have problems with major sensitivities and allergic reactions to things like this.

I bid a sad farewell to Procter.

I can’t recall when I began using tide laundry detergent. College perhaps. It’s been at least 20 years. I now have to end this relationship. One of us changed for the worst and it wasn’t me. Why, why, WHY do marketing people believe successful things MUST be changed? Did sales of original tide decrease during the pandemic? Very unlikely.

Anyways, the new “improved” yet unannounced change has left me with clothes smelling so strongly I cannot wear them and have to store them in my garage. The smell began to overwhelm my entire 2400 Sq ft house with just a single laundry basket of clothes.

I tried washing again with just warm water and double rimsing in both my top-load and HE machines. Natural fibers do better but I fear I’ll have to donate and replace several hundred dollars of synthetic fabric athletic training clothes.

I can’t breath in that much smell. Who on earth convinced a corporate board this was a BETTER let alone a good idea?! We already smell like shampoo, soaps.

I’m not sure what this is made up of because the packaging does NOT say much. It foams up just like baking soda when I pour white vinegar. Has a different color than baking soda, that’s for sure. I do know the cloth diapers are a bit cleaner looking.

I’m still trying to get to hang of using this.

When we moved off the grid, trucking our garbage three hours away to the dump became a monthly necessity we took upon ourselves. Considering we have three children, disposable diapers were no longer an option.

The first thing we learned about cloth diapers is that they *require* special laundry detergent. We tried our standard “gentle” detergent and not only did the cloth diapers completely stop absorbing fluids, but they also irritated my children’s skin and smelled like amonia.

We were ready to give up on cloth diapers completely until I went online and discovered Rockin’ Green Cloth Diaper and Laundry Detergent. After that, our cloth diapers worked perfectly! They absorb the urine, don’t smell like amonia and don’t cause rashes.

I just use it like standard detergent then line-dry the diapers. For particularly soiled loads it works wonderfully as a soak too. Plus I absolutely adore the Smashing Melon scent!.

I was talking to a friend about Surf back in the day and how I missed a good powder detergent. I found this one online and gave it a try. WOW. It’s lasted so long and the bucket is recyclable and reusable.

I bought this in April and it’s still half full here at the end of August. It smells good and it cleans good. Will buy again for sure!.

I bought this detergent and was skeptical. I absolutely love it so much I’m buying my 2nd bucket. It’s lasted a long time and let me tell you we do A LOT of laundry. It smells wonderful and cleans clothes great with no powder residue.

My son is a St. Jude patient and we have to constantly wash and it gets the stains out. I will continue to buy. I’ve turned my friend to this detergent bc of all the great qualities. Also, nothing was wrong with the bucket when delivered.

Ive been getting this detergent for about a year now. Its THE BEST detergent. Clothes smell great , gets stains out like no other. Plus amazingly its one of the cheapest detergents. You pay half less than cheaper brands and triple less than leading brands and it works better than them all.

Ill never use others detergents again.

I am not always a fan of the pods in general. I think they are a little more expensive than the standard liquid and I used to think they didn’t really get items clean. I picked up a box of these exact pods from Sam’s Club (where they are sometimes cheaper than Amazon) because they had the Oxi in them.

I had a family member who has interstitial cystitis and sometimes the clothing needs a little more than standard cleaning. Anyone who suffers from this will understand. These pods are the ONLY thing I have found to get the smell out of the clothing without having to soak first or apply an additional cleaner to the clothing.

It has a pleasant “clean” smell I don’t mind either. In addition, if you or someone you know, has any dexterity issues, these come in handy. If there are no children or pets in the home, you can leave the lid off and just reach in to grab the number you need.

No trying to twist the lid off and on like the liquid. If it gets knocked over, the liquid doesn’t spill everywhere. I still use the liquid as well and save these for my barn clothes or heavy dog smelling items.

I have had, one time, where the pod did not dissolve at all and was still solid. I didn’t realize it and it ended up in the dryer with some Clothes. I pulled it out and saw a blue stain in my eggshell camisole and thought it was ruined.

Threw it in the wash again and it all came out perfect. Now I do watch for that just in case.

These smell amazing!!! I absolutely love the smell of fresh clean clothes and I have been buying Unstoppables for years to try and boost that clean clothes smell into my laundry and even then, it was only a little with the Unstoppables.

We recently went on a skiing trip and for the ease of using something in a rented condo, I bought a small pack of these same Tide Pods. After every load of laundry, we all just smelled so nice and that freshness lasted too!! I originally was just going to leave the leftover pods at the condo for the next family, but no way!! I brought them home and then jumped on Amazon to buy more! I have said goodbye to all my other detergents and I don’t even need Unstoppables anymore, so while Tide Pods are a little more expensive than my other detergent, since I’m no longer using Unstoppables, it’s actually cheaper!! I even recently gave someone a comforter that I had just washed with the pods and they messaged me asking what detergent I used bc it smelled so good!! If you’re sensitive to that strong fresh laundered smell, this could be too much, but for those like me who LOVE that smell, this is the detergent for you!!!.

As a family of 6 that just inherited an estate – we see a lot of laundry. Mom here more than anyone. I’ve been on a mission to stay on top of it since a recent move and these make it super easy to do quick loads and go on.

I don’t feel the need to look over every toddler top to make sure it came out clean or check the young boys knees for residual stains. I pre treat as I see problem areas but for the most part I just toss & wash.

With these pods I can pop them into the drum when I pull out the freshly laundered load and then when I tell the kids to pop their piles in they can just hit start and be done. I did have a little trouble opening the bag so it wasn’t really resealed for us but they didn’t last long here anyway with the amount of clothing we go through.

My husband works in construction and has some clothes where the smells seem baked in but this is undoing months of damage there and keeping the newer pieces fresh which is important and saves me the step of having to add another product in with the detergent.

I’ll definitely be looking to see if our club store has these in bulk.

I’ve been a longtime user of Tide with bleach. I work in a barn. A vet recommended this detergent to me years ago to effectively disinfect clothing and I used it ever since. I absolutely loved the clean, fresh smell.

I did my first load with a new bottle and the new scent instantly brought on a headache. Clothing was washed in warm water, DOUBLE rinse and still has a highly perfumed smell. What’s worse, is I can still detect barn odor under the perfume! It’s not cleaning, it’s masking.

And poorly so. I never detected any barn odor on clothing when using the old scent. As one of the more expensive detergents on the market, I’d trust it would be the best. I will not buy this product again and I’m also highly irritated that I now have a new bottle of detergent that is useless to me.

I cannot had this scent around me non-stop or I will be physically ill. And please, no defensive company response to this review. You made a horrible judgement call with this product and plenty of people have spoken out about it.

Accept and acknowledge it and restore the product people loved and trusted.

I have been a long time Tide consumer. I always look forward to Saturday morning wash day when I can use my Tide with Bleach to get everything fresh and clean again, especially my bedding. I recently purchased a new bottle of Tide with Bleach and washed my bedding this morning.

As soon as I took it out of the washer, I noticed the spicy scent. It smells like men’s cologne. I cannot tolerate the smell, it is suffocating and it gave me a headache. I work in a hospital where we cannot wear heavy scents as they may not be tolerable to our patients.

I cannot wash my work scrubs with Tide anymore. If I wanted to smell like a man I’d wear mens cologne and I certainly don’t want it in my bedding (neither does my husband for that matter) I won’t even be able to wear my own perfume.

Nothing like a woman smelling like a man! Please please please bring back the light pleasant CLEAN scent. The way laundry is supposed to smell!.

I used to have a stain treatment that was miraculous: Tide with Bleach Alternative, Oxyclean and Borax. Soak. Soak a lot. It got out nearly everything. For oily stains I used Dawn for pretreatment. Double rinse to get out the scents because I am sensitive to scents.

Then they changed the smell of all the Tides, and I just couldn’t stand it. But I had to donate all the clothes that I had washed in the new scented Tide because I couldn’t get the smell out. I washed them in baking soda, I soaked them in vinegar.

Everything smelled even WEEKS after I had used scented Tide. I even had to stop using my dry cleaner/laundry because it was bought out by Tide. Even though my husband’s shirts weren’t washed in scented detergent, they came back smelling like Tide! I couldn’t even go in the store because the smell is so overpowering.

If people want their clothes to smell, let them use those scented dryer products. Let the rest of us be scent-free in peace.

Seventh Generation Powered by Plants Laundry Detergent – Fresh Lavender Scent As a member of Seventh Generation’s Generation Good Advocates Community, I received free samples of Seventh Generation Powered by Plants Laundry Detergent in Fresh Lavender Scent in exchange for my honest review.

I really liked this product. The laundry detergent effectively cleaned my laundry, left my laundry smelling clean and fresh, and is safe and gentle for the most sensitive skin. The laundry detergent has a pleasant, light, fresh lavender scent.

I love that the laundry detergent is made with bio-based ingredients and does not contain dyes, synthetic fragrances, artificial brighteners, phosphates, or animal by-products. The 100% biodegradable laundry detergent that is made with renewable, plant-based cleaning ingredients provided big cleaning power and tackled the toughest, dirtiest, smelliest laundry.

I highly recommend Seventh Generation Powered by Plants Laundry Detergent in Fresh Lavender Scent. I received this product for an honest review. Opinions are my own. #GenerationGood #7thGenPartner #freesample.

In our home we are actively working to implement more environmentally safe, biodegradable, plant based products. I have followed a vegan based diet for my entire life and do not “wear” animals with regard to clothing as well as makeup/skincare.

However it is a challenge to find cruelty free, vegan (mostly) and effective products for cleaning anything: from dishes and floors to clothes and linens. When I read about Seventh Generation’s 100% biodegradable, lavender scented detergent I hoped the 97% plant based product would clean our clothes as effectively as the chemicals we’ve been using.

First things first; it has a lovely lavender oil fragrance and I checked reliable third party testing sources and read that the plant based enzymes and 100% biodegradable claims are true and the only complaint from an environmental standpoint was a lack of less wasteful packaging.

This is not an issue for me to debate as our recycling is still full on a weekly basis- but we are trying. In order to give the best, most honest review I needed to use the detergent under different conditions.

First, I used it on a regular size load of only my light coloured clothing and I didn’t add any other producs (e. g. no fabric softener, no oxiclean etc. ) The result was clean laundry without much of a fragrance but I didn’t have anything really dirty or smelly in the bin.

Next, I used it on my boyfriend’s work clothes, a daunting task for even some chemicals. It didn’t do much for his clothes, even with the addition of fabric softener and in-wash scent boosters. I received these three sample packets for free in exchange for my honest review and I was out of product to try anything else.

Compared to the few other “green” detergents I have used this worked better in terms of general cleaning and leaving some fragrance. The downside is that it wasn’t very effective on stains whether they had “set in” or were fresh and lastly the lavender scent didn’t last very long after the initial wash.

That can be enhanced with essential oil mists for the dryer though.

I have had Psoriasis in my neck area where the clothes have the closest skin contact and rubs against the skin on the neck. Harsh laundry Detergents makes it worse. After using Seventh Generation laundry detergent I found out that it has no artificial dyes, scents and no artificial brighteners it is powered by plants, it really made me happy.

It keeps my clothes soft and cleans also very well. I work at a school so kids touch me all the time with something in their hands and when I come home and wash my clothes all that grime goes away. My psoriasis on the neck doesn’t feel irritated so much and it gives me relief from feeling super itchy.

Thanks Seventh generation for this awesome detergent and it comes in my favorite scent , Fresh Lavender. I like that a lot. I received a free product for the purpose of my honest review. These are my own opinions after trying the product that I received as free samples.

Thanks for my free samples and $2 coupon to buy some from the store.

A must have to add to your laundry load if you think you have hard water. I realized that most cities have hard water from all the chemical treatments. Truly an added bonus to my laundry and a little goes a long way.

Charlie’s Laundry Soap has great value and you are being kind to Planet Earth!.

If you don’t have a water softener in your house, chances are you have some degree of hard water. This is a MUST, even if you do not use Charlies Soap Powder (which is a very good product). Hard water prevents soaps from cleaning well and makes the soap leave behind a dulling residue on your clothes, and in your machine! I had trouble with build up from national popular brand detergents.

A few loads run with this booster and my machine sparkles like new. It not only prevents buildup, it will help wash away the old buildup you have. I used Charlies Soap for several years, then began making my own laundry detergent.

The booster is the key to making ANY product clean well in hard water. I recently purchased a top-of-the-line dishwasher, that demands you use rinse agent in it. I do not. I add a teaspoon of this booster to the soap dispenser with my detergent and my dishes are spotless.

The interior of my dishwasher sparkles also. This is a great product to off set the hard water we fight with in cleaning.

I live in PR. The water is very hard. We have a lot of problems with our plumbing systems. I had to use twice the amount of soap recommended. With this booster I see lather with the amount of soap recommended, in addition my clothe comes of clean.

It smells clean, no fragrance, but plain clean. I definitely recommend it specially in places with hard water issues.

As an avid soccer player, my life has been improved by this detergent as I was previously hand washing with a laundry bar as a prewash in order to remove odour, which long term, because of frequency of use, was causing damage to fabrics.

For particularly nasty equipment, I do a long soak. (I do the same for cat blankets and have even had some success with cat urine, though that requires some extra work, including a water only rinse to start and fully drying between extra long detergent soaks thereafter.

) For “usual” post-game cleaning, I use a long wash cycle. Express wash cycles don’t cut it, probably because the enzyme has insufficient time to act. It’s also important, I’ve found, to use warm water to maximize benefits.

Fabric colors have been well-maintained, as has fabric integrity. I provided a large “sample” to a teammate recently, one with a household full of players, and she’s now a fan, too.

Tried this on cloth diapers to remove heavy ammonia smell. I did not use it in combination with Rockin Green detergent but with our normal detergent. The cloth diapers come out clean but the heavy ammonia smell was back after one use.

I have since used a 1/4 cup or so of bleach with the wash and afterwards run an extra cycle and that seemed to clear the ammonia smell for now. We air dry the covers and dry the inserts in the dryer.

Someone also suggested to dry the diapers out in the sun, which I will try depending on how long until the smell comes back. I was refunded by Bed Bath & Beyond for the purchase price but not the shipping.

These are a must have! I realized a few months back that oxi clean is an absolute necessity for me to use with my laundry. I work out regularly and nothing really works to get out that post workout smell.

So, typically I add oxiclean to my washing machine, then add my Tide pods. But, the fact that these pods have oxi clean in them?? So great! I’ve done both these things- still added the pre soak oxi clean and then one of these combo pods and also just used one of these pods.

They work great, either way. It’s more a matter of how bad the stain or smell is I want to tackle. I recently had my basement flood after a storm and unfortunately had clothes on the floor which sat soaked in rainwater overnight.

Needless to say I needed to work to tackle the issue and the smell bc wow it was not great. I really didn’t want to have to get rid of all the clothes that got wet. These tide pods were great for the wash cycles I used along with the presoak which truly worked better than just the regular pods.

I highly recommend this product. I’ve used this product most of my life and I find myself always going back to it when trying out other brands. I’ve tried many brands thru the years just to see if there’s any difference and to be honest, I saw nothing significant between them all.

This one is super affordable and it actually took out a major stain in my blue jeans that I didn’t think would come out. Idk if I brushed up against something or sat down on something but I was walking around with green liquid on my rear not knowing it until I changed my clothes.

I was mortified and irritated about it thinking they were ruined, but I use this Xtra detergent and to my surprise the stain was gone. I was happy because these are my favorite jeans. Please try this, you wont regret it.

I have used Xtra Laundry Detergent for many years. I have always had great results with it getting my clothes as clean as the very expensive brands! If you have a spot that is extra dirty, just pour some Xtra directly on the area and rub it in.

I recently washed my red rain coat (which doesn’t get wasted that often) and before washing I noticed there was a dirty ring on the inside of the collar. I hadn’t noticed it before I guess because the red color helped hide it.

I rubbed some Xtra along the inside collar, scrubbed the area with my fingers, washed it and the dirty ring was gone!! I have enjoyed every scent, so I am sure that I will love this new scent as well!! I am very comfortable in recommending Xtra Laundry Detergent to anyone who wants clean, fresh smelling clothes!.

I will start by saying, my whole family has used Tide for over 30 years. Tide Original has been a comforting smell of home to me for as long as I can remember. When Tide changed the scent of the liquid Tide Original a couple of years ago, I called customer service to complain.

It was noxious, and way too potent, smelling up the entire house after a wash, even “when used as directed. ” The company thanked me for my feedback, and assured me I could still enjoy the old scent in Tide “mountain spring.

” I can’t find this anywhere at the stores in my town. Also, this means the “Tide Original” smell is far from Original. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Tide Original powder was pretty close to the actual Original smell.

We have happily used it since. I have always loved the effectiveness of Tide. Until the last box we purchased about a month ago. The first wash I took out of the machine hit me in the face with the scent.

It was like an air freshener in a public toilet, reminiscent of a urinal puck, complete with a hint of ammonia. I thought maybe something gross had gone through the wash in a kid’s pocket, and caused a weird reaction.

I washed the load again. It was worse. We’ve tried to get through the box by cutting the “Tide Original” with powder Tide Free and Clear. The results fluctuate between an awful, sickly, overly-sweet candy scent, and the aforementioned puck.

The laundry is so strong otherwise, we can’t stand it. This will unfortunately be my last box of Tide. I am fed up with changes to an “Original” formula I trusted, and now I have to wade through the market of detergents to find something that doesn’t give us headaches.

Tide, please listen to customer feedback, and leave “Original” scent as original! If you want to change the formula to give the scent a boost, then market it seperately as “scent boosted”!.

I bought these because I was tired of my cascade dish detergent (liquid) seemingly going so quickly and barely getting the job done. they seem to be cleaning my dishes just fine and I love that I know exactly how many loads I have left to be able to clean.

In my house things like that matter- with a small baby often things forget to be bought and then i just run out! I also really like that these are individually sealed. I had bought a bag of individual little detergent balls and after loading the dishwasher my hands would be ever so slightly wet when i went to grab one.

the moisture, even minimal started making the rest of them in the bag deteriorate, as they break down when touching water. these being individually wrapped means that I dont ruin them with damp hands when i go to grab them! also.

i dont have any spots on my glasses and they are a good price. overall happy and would recommend and or buy again.

It’s a must. I have hard water and old appliances. It’s the small things that keep them working great. I add this and a dishwasher cleaning agent to keep my dishwasher running like new. A little preventative maintenance goes a long way! Good price and fast shipping too.

We have VERY hard water in my hometown. I discovered this fabulous product several years ago and have been amazed at how well it deals with it. A few weeks ago, I could not find it at Walmart, Kroger, or any other store.

I was stunned! I tried the newest product, Finish Quantum, and this time I was stunned at how poorly it did anything! It even caused the copper on the bottom of my pots to turn spotty brown!! Ugh!! I was sooo hoping that the Boost Powder was still available somewhere.

I have now gone back to using it and the box of powdered detergent. GREATLY SATISFIED!!!.

I already wrote one review on how terrible the smell is but now I must write another review. Not only is the smell horrible but it lingers and is giving me a migraine headache. I have been a faithful Tide user for 40 years and loved how it smelled.

It was a clean fresh smell that was mild and pleasing to the senses. This new “Original” Tide has an overpowering perfume smell that permeates everything. In desperation I tried Tide Clean Breeze and it was even worse.

It was mentioned by the manufacturer to try Tide Mountain Spring – that this is closer to the original smell. I will try it but I will probably have to stop using Tide since they are likely using this new fragrance technology in all of their products.

When I was at the store today looking for another brand to try I noticed ALL the scents were overpowering — even more so than Tide. Sadly even the more natural brands are also doing crazy strong scents.

Who decided we want to smell like strong lingering perfume???.

I had been using Tide for at least 30 years. When you switched the original scent quite a few years ago, at least the Mountain Spring smelled like the original and I stayed with Tide. Then you switched the Mountain Spring scent, so I switched to scent free (after I used up all the old mountain spring scented liquid I had stored up.

) I find the scent free pods do not clean as well. I have to use more pods than recommended to get the clothes clean. Recently, I stayed at my daughter’s house. She uses the current tide original pods.

I couldn’t fall sleep because the sheets smelled so strongly of the detergent. And, it gave me a bad headache. I washed the sheets multiple times with scent free but could not get the smell out of the sheets.

Why haven’t companies learned from the Coke disaster. Don’t change the formula of a popular product. Now I have to look for detergent from another company.

I have tried several more economical dishwashers and have no point of comparison the results of said dishwashers with the results of finish quantum. It is true that it is more expensive, it is true that with what you save you can buy a new dishwasher almost almost, but I have glasses that are completely white have used the detergent bad and clear, if the new dishwasher added glassware does not come out So to account saving.

It’s simple, you take the capsule, put it in the corresponding compartment and turn on the dishwasher, I have not noticed that it has any characteristic smell when I take things out of the dishwasher.

It is an all in one, that is, we do not need to add salt to the dishwasher or rinse aid, everything comes with the same capsule that is wrapped in a kind of plastic that dissolves with water. I do not usually use sponge or brush before putting things in the dishwasher, I simply throw the remains in the trash and the dish goes to the dishwasher and everything, absolutely everything comes out clean and without debris.

This is the most incredible, powerful cleaning booster for your dishwasher. A service technician recommended it a couple years back when my brand new dishwasher was leaving the dishes filmy and sometimes not completely clean.

I had technician out one after the other, then Sears tech told me he thought all I needed was some good booster and recommended Finish. I can’t believe how clean the dishes are now, sparkly, shiny incredibly clean.

I almost was going to buy a new dishwasher because I thought something was wrong with this new one I bought. Highly recommend.