Arm & Hammer plus OxiClean Stain Fighters Powder Laundry Detergent

Long-form detergent review

Experienced members of our community test detergents with cloth nappies and general laundry.

The Arm & Hammer plus OxiClean powder detergent is one of the cheapest name brand laundry detergents in the supermarket, which makes it a very attractive option for many people. The Fresh Scent is mild and very pleasant too, unlike Tide’s overwhelming fragrance. For these reasons, I really wanted this detergent to work. So much so that I tested it twice, years apart! Unfortunately, it just did not pass muster.

The first round of tests

Using the dose for a large load in a traditional top loader, the Arm & Hammer plus OxiClean powder did not remove the bright yellow stains from breastfeeding poop after my main wash. Increasing the dose did not improve its performance either. While excess suds is not an issue in a top loader, the extra powder did mean I had to add extra rinses, which in my case was to run a whole other cycle again with no detergent. I don’t need to spell out how wasteful that was …

I even raised the wash temperature of my top loader by pouring in hot water from a kettle while the washer was filling up. The higher wash temperature helped some, but there were still stains on the diapers after the main wash.

The powder detergent performed okay with our lightly soiled family laundry, but when it came to baby’s clothes, its poor stain removal meant that food and poop stains often remained.

The second time around

The second time I tested the Arm & Hammer plus OxiClean powder was after we bought a new high-efficiency (HE) front loading washing machine. I thought perhaps the better washer will compensate for the detergent’s shortcomings. The answer was no. Diapers and clothes still came out with faint stains, and the HE front loader meant that increasing the dose was not a good option.

Front loaders use less water than traditional top loaders. Adding too much detergent would result in excess suds, powder residue on clothes, or excessive rinsing to resolve a suds lock.

Conclusion

With 80–83% of sodium carbonate in the detergent, this is pretty much a glorified water softener. It does contain enzymes and oxygen bleach, and is significantly cheaper than Arm & Hammer’s own washing soda. If you have hard to very hard water, this may be a cost-effective addition to your laundry. However, the Arm & Hammer plus OxiClean powder laundry detergent is a fail when it comes to cleaning cloth diapers.

Parent company: Church & Dwight Co.