Have You Measured Your Powdered Laundry Detergent?

If you use powdered laundry detergent, do you ever wonder about the accuracy of the number of loads printed on the box? I have often considered counting the loads of laundry I have actually been able to do with a box of detergent, but just never got around to doing it.

Recently my husband brought home a smaller-than-usual box of one of the brands I use, and said it was supposed to do 46 loads of laundry. I thought of the big scoop that was enclosed in that brand of detergent and said that it must be very concentrated to get 46 loads from that small box. I expected the scoop to be smaller, but when I opened the box and dug it out, it was the same size as always. If the scoop were filled to the top line, it appeared that it would get perhaps 9 to 12 loads.

On examination of the scoop, I found 3 different marks on the side of the scoop. On the box, instructions were to fill the scoop to line 3 for heavily soiled loads or large washers.

What's a large washer? And by whose definition is it large? Did you ever see a washer advertised as being small or medium? I thought they were always "large capacity, heavy duty capacity, etc." So if large is smaller than heavy duty and so on, how much would you use for a heavy duty washer?

There were also instructions to fill the scoop to line 1 for "medium loads or regular washers." Have you ever seen a washer advertised as "regular"? I haven't.

My husband wasn't particularly busy at the time, so he offered to try measuring the detergent by filling the scoop to line 1. Just as we suspected, that has to be the standard by which the "46 loads" was determined. Only he got more like 40 loads.

One can only assume line number 2 was for loads that fell somewhere in between 1 and 3.

I have attempted to load a picture of the scoop filled to line 1, sitting in front of the detergent box, but don't know if it will be with this when published.

I don't intend to measure every box of detergent I buy, but it stands to reason that all brands are measured the same way. Maybe I don't do laundry the way everybody else does, but more often than not, I don't do "medium loads" when I do laundry, so there's no way I would ever get 46 loads from a box the size of that one.

It's just another example of deceptive advertising. Like making smaller candy bars or containers of ice cream, etc. and selling them for the same price as before. How I yearn for the honesty of former years when the manufacturers might have said, "Our costs to produce this product have risen, so we must raise the price as well," rather than trying to fool the consumers into thinking they're actually getting what they're paying for.