Stiftung Warentest examined color detergents from a total of 20 different suppliers.
The result surprises.
Berlin – Stiftung Warentest repeatedly puts a wide variety of products through their paces.
The results often surprise and give consumers a guideline in the jungle of goods.
Color detergents, i.e. products for colored laundry that is to be separated from light-colored clothing, were recently tested.
Eight of the seven powder and 13 liquid detergents could not shine.
Overall, a clear trend can be seen in terms of quality, which indicates that the motto "old but gold" probably applies to the well-tried powder detergent.
Detergent: Color products tested – more than 10,000 stains tested by Stiftung Warentest
One might think that the requirements for a detergent are not too high.
Strong detergency, no unpleasant odor and a gentle action on the laundry - that's what the consumer normally expects from the products that can be bought for various textiles.
However, it seems in view of the results that Stiftung Warentest has now published, it is not that easy to find a detergent that serves all these aspects.
A total of 20 detergents for colored laundry were tested over a period of six months.
450 packs were distributed in 57 households in order to be able to assess the use on clothing, bathing and household textiles.
After testing with over 10,000 stains, some of them stubborn, the results were clear.
Stiftung Warentest: powder detergent better than liquid variant
It turned out that when it comes to washing power, powdered detergents are clearly ahead.
In the test, the products "usually showed better washing performance", which applies "in particular to dirt and often also to stains".
Test winners are the powders from Persil, Domol and Ariel, each of which received the rating "good".
Liquid detergents, on the other hand, not only cleaned the textiles unsatisfactorily, but sometimes even spread the dirt over the laundry.
As a result, the liquid detergents ended up in the lower places, the brand product from Weißer Riese (Color Gel) was only able to achieve the grade "sufficient".
An outlier, however, is Formil Color from the discounter Lidl, which received a grade of 2.2.
The fact that no-name products often do better than branded items is a phenomenon that can often be observed.
Stiftung Warentest: Hard words for sensitive detergents
It was also particularly surprising that so-called sensitive detergents, which are recommended for underwear, for example, received harsh criticism from Stiftung Warentest.
“There is no evidence of skin-irritating effects - neither with the sensitive nor with the other color detergents.
In terms of dirt and stain removal, none of the sensitive products was convincing,” was the test result, in which, for example, the sensitive detergent from Sodasan (Color Sensitiv) received the grade “poor”.
List of rubrics: © Manfred Bail/imagebroker/Imago