Diluted thick Bleach product NOT FOR COLORS
Written: Sep 27 '06 (Updated Sep 27 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Thickness, Handle on the bottle. Light blue color. Nicely scented.
Cons: Bleached my colored clothes. Still needed to be pre-treated to get out stains. Large bottle.
The Bottom Line: Nice for its ease of pouring and its thickness. I don't believe that added enough value for me to change pre-treating clothes and using less expensive Clorox bleach.
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| maglib's Full Review: Clorox UltimateCare Premium Bleach |
First I would like to thank Fleishman Hillard for sending me a sample of this product for my honest review on Epinions.com.
I stated this fact first as it's important to note that they specifically do NOT want us to give details on the product that you can easily read on your own so I won't. You will find my test results and my honest opinions below of the product and its features.
I loved the idea of this product. A bleach that is thick and creamy so it won't splatter. That in and of itself would have gotten me to want to try this product. You wouldn't believe how many outfits I have ruined when small spots of bleach accidentally splattered on my outfit!
Well I put this "bleach" product to a pretty rigorous multi-step test.
Preliminary Work:
First I purchased brand new socks for the whole family. We needed them anyway. I let them go about their normal play routines. Some of the socks were worn outside in the grass, dirt, etc. Some were used while mowing the lawn. Others were just worn around the house. We have 3 boys, 1 father and 1 mother who wore their whites for a full week just for you the reader.
TEST 1 and RESULTS:
I split the laundry into 2 piles, 1 for the Ultimate Care test and 1 for Clorox Bleach test. The laundry included the new socks, some older socks, some two-toned shirts, other normal whites like towels and t-shirts. I did not put any 2-toned clothes with the bleach wash as I already know that they would bleach from past experiences......... Each load was washed in a full heavy duty washer with All Free liquid detergent and hot water. (Note that I have some hard water issues where I live). I added the appropriate amount of bleach product to each load. I did not pretreat any of these items.
Results of test 1: I loved the creaminess of the Ultimate Care liquid and found it poured quite easily. I did not have any splatters and it poured smoothly. The smell was a tad bleachy, but a spring like nicer scent. It beat the bleach for smells and pourability. I needed to still use 6oz of this product (a big capful) in these days I would have hoped to not have had to use so much of the product as the bottle is quite large and heavy.
The clothes with the Ultimate Care product came out looking whiter than a normal non-bleach wash but, there was still obvious stains and dirt in them including normal dirt stains, coffee and ice cream that did not come out (lighter yes but, obviously still there). The ring around the collor on the polo shirts lightened but, was still noticable on the Ultimate Care load but, was almost completely gone in the bleach load. The same overall load with bleach, came out cleaner and brighter with only a few stains that did not come out. The clothes smelled fresher with the Ultimate Care than the bleach scent too. I also noticed that the two toned cotton clothes lost some coloring so while I have read that this product can be used on some colors, I wouldn't trust this and would definitely test it first.
TEST 2 and RESULTS:
Well I took all those clothes that still had obvious stains from test 1 and pre-treated all the major stains (a few were older stains) with the Clorox Ultimate Care but, I did not pretreat the normal sock stains. I then added the regular amount of detergent and this time used 9 ounces of the product (less what I used for pretreating). The directions do say for heavier soiled clothes you can use 1.5 times the normal amount.
Results of test 2:With this, I did accidentally spill some of the product as while it is thick, it is still liquid and tough to pre-treat clothes with (maybe they could bottle it in a spray container). I washed my hands immediately but, like with bleach the scent lingered all day long.
I took the clothes out and found that all of the stains were gone in the areas that I pretreated. I also found that the sock stains lightened. The issue was that all the two-toned colors lost their coloring big time just like when you wash with bleach. My son is pretty upset that his baseball shirt sleeves faded and have bleach stains now (my bad, I read on other reviews that people washed dark blue and it came out brighter, boy were they wrong).
DRYING RESULTS: I took the clothes from test 1 that were bleach cleaned and dryed them seperate of the clothes that I used the Ultimate Care product, I did not and normally do not use fabric softener. Here I found that the Ultimate Care definitely added a softness to the clothes that I did not see with the bleach clothes. The Ultimate Care clothes smelled fresher while, the bleach clothes still had the nasty bleach smell to them.
OTHER NOTES:
The design of the bottle is similar to a liquid laundry detergent bottle. It is heavy and has a handle which does make it easier to pour. The thickness of the product is a plus. I love the cool light blue colors of the bottle. It was soothing to look at.
Another positive finding was that the product did help clean out the gunk that builds up in the washing machine. Adding the liquid bleach (either form) helps to prevent this build up and to sanitize your washing machine.
OVERALL RECOMENDATIONS: Based upon my tests, I loved the ease of pouring this product over normal bleach and the scent was definitely fresher but, that did not make up for the fact that bleach works better. I found that this product was not safe on my colored clothes and they had noticeable loss of color. Since using 1.5 times this product for heavy soiled clothes had the same results as bleach, I would just stick with the less expensive bleach and try to be careful when pouring. I do understand that under normal circumstances some colored clothes are safe, I just did not find this. I also understand that bleach is not supposed to be so safe direct on clothes but, I've never had any problems with that.
I wish they would just make bleach thick like this and I'll just continue to pre-treat stains.
Clorox may want to look at selling this product in a spray bottle for pre-treating whites as that would be something I may like as the thickness might help the product stay to an area over what happens when you spray liquid bleach.
I'm recomending this only because it did work better than no bleach and I do like the fact that the clothes were softer and had a better scent to them. Those who don't like bleach smells maybe should use this product.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
maglib
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Location: Marlboro, NJ, USA
Reviews written: 24
Trusted by: 11 members
About Me:
Three gorgeous boys and happily married! No time but a lot of love!
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