[Enthalpy]

Hello dear friends!

Here's my message in a bottle...

The composition of washing powders and liquids has changed in the last decade. Presently, nearly all of them have one component, which I recognize from its common smell, that makes me sick. Someone already came to Chemicalforums because he got badly sick from washed clothes, I suspect the same cause. And from time to time, I hear people complain around me.

Maybe it started when phosphates were banned here in Europe. Liquids adopted this component possibly before powders did. Among the powders available here, Persil included it early, recently I could still use Coral and Ariel, but now a washing liquid from Ariel uses it. The component evaporates in some hours, and the smell weakens a lot during drying; I get sick in minutes when hanging the freshly machine-washed clothes despite machine rinsing, and two days after I'm sick within an hour from wearing the clothes, despite the odour has weakened much.

The patent symptoms are headaches, runny nose, sometimes sneezing, rarely itchy eyes. I do not recognize the allergy feeling of hay fever and would not suspect an allergy at first thought.

So please:

If you know which component causes this, tell me! I'd like to choose my washing powder from its ingredients list at the store. Presently I pay for a pack, carry it home on my back, just to discover that I must discard it and search in emergency a different pack to wash my clothes again, possibly after having been sick.

If you formulate washing powders and liquids, and your company doesn't want to reveal the composition, just put some patch on the pack that smells like the contents. That would be more informative than names esoteric to the consumer.

And please keep some brands or formulations without that component. Presently I know only 2 or 1 that I can still use, if they disappear I'll have to live naked in some remote location of Amazonas or Papua-new Guinea.

Thank you!

[AWK]

Try washing powder for babies

[Enthalpy]

Good idea, thanks!