How Effective Are Blueland’s Laundry Tablets?
Written by Syed Naqvi Head of Product Development + Innovation at Blueland
August 24, 2020
When developing our products, we strive to optimize all of our products for human and environmental health as well as effectiveness and that’s why we have our ingredients analyzed by Cradle to Cradle and our cleaning products tested at independent, third party labs and share the results. Our product and development process includes testing by third-party, independent labs for all of our cleaning, hand soap and detergent products. Our newest product, Blueland Laundry Tablets, also underwent third-party tests. You can read about the results of these tests below.
How Do Blueland Laundry Tablets Work?
Blueland Laundry Tablets come in a dry, concentrated tablet form. Similar to conventional laundry pacs, you load one Blueland Laundry Tablet directly into the drum of the washing machine and turn on the machine to the desired washing cycle. However, in contrast to conventional laundry pacs, Blueland Laundry tablets are not individually wrapped in Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA), but instead come naked. They are shipped in compostable packaging and we also sell a refillable tin-coated steel container that is designed for continuous re-use and recommended with our Laundry Tablets.
Do Blueland Laundry Tablets Work?
Our Laundry Tablets were tested alongside five major laundry pac and liquid laundry brands. The results for the tests are below. The major brands are labeled as, “Laundry pac 1”, “Laundry pac 2”, “Laundry pac 3”, “Laundry liquid 1” and “Laundry liquid 2”. Blueland Laundry Tablets outperformed a major brand on 8 of the 10 stains tested in a cold water wash.
Testing Procedure:
Blueland laundry tablets were tested alongside major brands on their ability to clean various household stains off of fabric. The tablets, pacs and liquid detergents were tested in cold water and the tablets and pacs were also tested in warm water washing cycles. The stains were applied to cotton or cotton-polyester fabrics. For both the cold and warm water wash tests the same testing procedure was followed. Three swatches of every stain were used for each brand. All of the stained cloths were put into one washing cycle with one tablet, one pac or 1.5 oz of liquid detergent. Additional clean fabrics were added to the cycles to mimic a full load of laundry.
The efficacy of each product was measured in terms of the delta E. The delta E reflects the change between two colors – i.e. color of the fabric with the stain before wash, and the color of the fabric after wash. The higher the delta E, the greater the change between before and after the wash cycle, which reflects a greater amount of stain was removed from the fabric. The results for the cold water wash test and the warm water wash test are below:
Cold Water Wash
Stain | Blueland | Major Laundry Pac 1 | Major Laundry Pac 2 | Major Laundry Pac 3 | Major Laundry Liquid 1 | Major Laundry Liquid 2 |
Rice | 24.70 | 27.35 | 34.50 | 32.80 | 12.37 | 17.54 |
Blood Mixture* | 20.17 | 31.28 | 25.82 | 23.89 | 13.98 | 20.64 |
Chocolate Ice Cream | 17.48 | 20.40 | 19.90 | 17.39 | 13.36 | 17.41 |
Pizza Sauce | 15.65 | 12.72 | 13.43 | 12.89 | 11.06 | 10.44 |
Yogurt & Berries | 11.18 | 13.33 | 12.26 | 12.42 | 10.70 | 11.95 |
Full Egg | 7.55 | 15.95 | 16.53 | 13.60 | 4.92 | 11.79 |
Grass Stain | 6.60 | 11.40 | 11.84 | 9.56 | 5.80 | 7.93 |
Liquid Makeup | 4.98 | 6.09 | 11.48 | 9.34 | 7.06 | 7.72 |
Dust Sebum | 4.70 | 9.72 | 8.28 | 8.91 | 6.43 | 6.78 |
Coffee | 1.70 | 4.91 | 1.48 | 2.69 | 1.42 | 1.31 |
Total: Delta E | 114.72 | 153.14 | 155.53 | 143.49 | 87.11 | 113.50 |
*Mixture of blood, milk and carbon
Warm Water Wash
Stain | Blueland | Major Laundry Pac 1 | Major Laundry Pac 2 | Major Laundry Pac 3 |
Rice | 25.13 | 27.91 | 36.15 | 33.53 |
Blood Mixture* | 19.17 | 29.57 | 27.40 | 26.33 |
Chocolate Ice Cream | 17.49 | 20.43 | 21.19 | 18.82 |
Pizza Sauce | 14.46 | 15.54 | 14.01 | 13.91 |
Yogurt & Berries | 13.46 | 11.17 | 11.65 | 11.26 |
Full Egg | 8.90 | 14.94 | 16.14 | 15.31 |
Grass Stain | 6.67 | 12.30 | 12.26 | 10.01 |
Liquid Makeup | 6.49 | 7.75 | 14.01 | 13.91 |
Dust Sebum | 4.94 | 8.48 | 8.12 | 5.98 |
Coffee | 1.42 | 2.52 | 1.11 | 1.29 |
Total: Delta E | 118.13 | 150.60 | 157.79 | 145.92 |
*Mixture of blood, milk and carbon
As seen in the chart above, Blueland Laundry Tablets clean common stains. To learn more about Blueland Laundry Tablets you can read the safety data sheet here. To learn more about how Blueland’s dish products work, and to learn more about Blueland’s spray cleaners work.
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