Laboratory Stain Testing

When it comes to product claims, it’s the wild west out there in consumer land. Having worked in corporate marketing for many years, I know first hand how greenwashing occurs and how words can be turned and twisted to fit a narrative regardless of whether a claim is 100% true or not. In my opinion, ethical and legal standards have been lowered so that if it’s kind of true, that’s good enough.

For example: I’m not a fan of the words “zero waste” because in my world that is impossible to achieve. Zero means nothing. How can any product be made that has zero negative impact or waste? Somehow, somewhere in producing said product something was thrown away. Some minute piece of plastic or petroleum or pollution in our air. That’s not zero waste, that’s low waste. I’m definitely open to hearing your opinion on this because I do tend to overthink things I’m passionate about.

I like facts. I like proof. I like third party verification that supports product claims. At Shecology we do our very best to be able to support the information we filter out to the world. So when we say our Laundry Pills remove black coffee and red wine stains better than Tide, you can believe it (because an independent laboratory tested it and we can back up those claims!)

In 2014 we went to an independent lab used primarily for the textile industry and asked them to perform stain tests for our Mother’s Little Helper® Laundry Pills. The stains that we chose for this test:

• Black Coffee

• Red Wine

• Oil Based Salad Dressing

• Dirt

• Grass

• Ketchup

These are common stains that in general most humans have to deal with. In my mind, they span the gamut of age-related stains. However it’s possible that an adult who is drinking excessive amounts of red wine can fall down in the grass or turn over the picnic table with ketchupy hot dogs and salad and have multiple stains from the list.

I also got to choose the other detergents to test against. I chose these because of their status of being the #1 selling conventional and natural laundry detergents and another natural liquid detergent:

• Mother’s Little Helper Laundry Pills

• 7th Generation

• Tide Free & Gentle

• Ecover

The results were impressive. From my own personal testing I knew my Laundry Pills were indeed superior in comparison to many detergents i tried, but to work better than Tide in some scenarios — a detergent filled with nasty toxic chemicals, optical brighteners, and harmful to your health — just wow.

In a nutshell the tests revealed that out of all the detergents tested:

1. Laundry Pills performed BEST in removing red wine and coffee stains.

2. Laundry Pills performed THE SAME in removing ketchup, salad dressing, and dirt.

3. Laundry Pills performance LACKED in removing grass stains.

CONCLUSION: I’m happy with those results and am proud to be the inventor and maker of a safe and environmentally superior product that can give Tide a run for their money.

NOTE: Since our Laundry Powder is the same exact active ingredients as the Laundry Pills the results of the stain tests can be extrapolated to include the Powder.