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August 6, 2014

Apparently, I'm a wastrel.

According to my severely thrifty, of-Scottish-descent late grandmother, being a wastrel is one of the worst character flaws a person could possibly possess.

But I'm a curious wastrel and ready to confront my defect head-on.

Am I the only consumer who has observed that they don't seem to get as many loads of laundry out of a bottle of detergent as is indicated on the label?
Several weeks ago I accepted the challenge of determining if I was, in fact, getting 50 loads of laundry out of this bottle of concentrated all detergent.  I diligently recorded each load on the side of the bottle.  



I even squeezed out one final load by running
water in the bottle and using the foamy suds:
The result of my amateur experiment:
32 loads of laundry instead of 50 the label indicated!

Did I subconsciously think that a full load of dirty laundry couldn't possibly get clean without a full cap of concentrated detergent?

Conclusions:
either all prevaricated (lied! - okay, over estimated) or I used too much of the concentrated detergent per load.  

I'm leaning toward the latter and, with this new bottle of all, am now dispensing detergent exactly as instructed.  Funny, our laundry doesn't seem to have suffered.

11 comments:

  1. Thanks. My children have enlightened me on a few ways to make things last as long as they should. One thing is that I have always used two Cascades in my dishwasher because my mom did. This week my kids asked, "Why are you putting two in there." Because mama always did.

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    1. I'm guilty of over-filling the dishwasher detergent dispenser. It is startling how much money can be saved by using just a little less of our cleaning supplies. But, I, too, pretty much follow in my Mom's footsteps when it comes to The Household Arts!

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  2. Jan, I think when they downsized the contents, they probably forgot to downsize the measuring cap, too! I use the gel packets now so I know how exactly how many loads I get from one canister.

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    1. You're right. I'm trying one of those huge '125 load' jugs of detergent that looks like a beer keg with a tap. And, measuring a little more carefully.

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  3. hahahahahahaha... so funny !
    I just pour the soap in the washer were the line is and I am done !

    cheers, parsnip

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    1. Yea, I've even been guilty of not even using the cap - just "eye ball" it!

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  4. I know your situation with laundry detergent. The manufactures put large caps on the bottles, thinking that we will not read the instructions...to fill to a mark inside the cap. This is way less than a full cap.

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    1. That's exactly what I think! We Americans (probably subconciously) feel that if a little is good than just a little more is even better. This experiment has opened my eyes to other over-measuring and showed me that maybe Less IS better,

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  5. You went to such great measures. Wow

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  6. I have always wondered the same thing. I always just fill the cap to where I think it should be. No wonder I am buying laundry detergent so often! Thanks!

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  7. Way to go you actually did it oh this is wonderful lol

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