Washing soda by any other name...
Written: Nov 10 '05 (Updated Nov 13 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Environmentally friendly, safe, versatile.
Cons: Cheap knockoffs and, most of the time, plain washing soda do as well or better.
The Bottom Line: OxiClean's cleaning power comes primarily from washing soda, which can be had for half the price or less. Reserve this for applications where bleach is actually needed.
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| bkalafut's Full Review: Orange Glo OxiClean Stain Remover |
Washing soda, called by any other name, is still just sodium carbonate.
Which, by the way, is one of the two main constituents of OxiClean, the other being sodium percarbonate, which yields free radical oxygen (hence the name OxiClean) and sodium carbonate when mixed with water.
For quite some time, that was it; OxiClean was a white, powdered mixture of these two salts, sold in plastic tubs and hailed as the miracle cleaning agent. It appears that recently Orange Glo added a bluing agent, perhaps to counteract the yellowing caused by all laundry bleaches; now there are blue specks mixed with the white powder.
OxiClean, though, remains a branded and heavily marketed version of something our great-grandmothers knew about. It's washing soda that fizzes.
Advantage over plain NaCO3 soda is marginal. OxiClean cleans some things more quickly and is a better bleaching agent, progressively whitening even unbleached cotton judo uniforms over time. At the same time, though, the release of oxygen puts it at a disadvantage; it can corrode metals, weaken fabrics, and destroy or peel nonstick coatings that plain washing soda would not damage.
Performance in most situations is comparable, as are package directions and the range of stains and messes that can be removed. Mixed into a paste with water and kept damp, OxiClean (just like washing soda) can be used as a safer and more environmentally sound substitute for aerosol oven cleaners. Mixed with water it can be used--carefully--as a household cleanser and a soaking agent to remove carbon and grime from stainless steel, ceramics, and most plastics. I've had success using this to get tea and coffee stains out of mugs and as a cleaner for glassware. The bluing agents in the reformulated product don't seem to interfere with OxiClean's performance as a household cleanser. Of course, OxiClean dries out hands and irritates skin, but there's no getting around that with strong alkalai salts. Wear gloves.
In the laundry--now Orange Glo's marketing focus for this product--it's primarily a water softening agent; the carbonate reacts with calcium and magnesium to form a precipitate. There are cheaper ways of doing this, with borax or (again) washing soda. Oxygen bleaching is more pronounced if this is used to soak or pretreat fabric--it can remove the yellow from undershirt armpits and the lapels of judo gis. Then again, washing soda can also do the latter, so it's not really oxygen bleaching at work in removing serious stains, despite the claims of Orange Glo's Popeilesque pitchmen. A larger scoop is now included in OxiClean, in part to get you to use more product and in part becuase significant bleaching, at older recommended concentrations, didn't occur.
Save yourself a few dollars by using washing soda for household cleaning instead of OxiClean, keeping this on reserve and using it only after figuring out whether or not it will damage what you're cleaning. If you actually do need or want an oxygen bleach for laundry (given what we know these days about chlorine, who doesn't?) store-brand knockoffs containing sodium percarbonate work just as well as this name-brand product. OxiClean is good stuff, but not worth the premium over washing soda around the house and no different than knockoffs in the laundry room.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
bkalafut
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 in Restaurants & Gourmet |
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Member: Bennett Kalafut
Location: Tucson, AZ, USA
Reviews written: 257
Trusted by: 42 members
About Me:
Stretching single molecules for fun and profit.
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