Ahhh… Now it is.

@OnionSoup The hamster took a short break.

@Kyeh I was going to say, “déjà oeuf” – gr8 minds!

@ircon96 Ooof!

@Kyeh

@heartny Oh, RIGHT! Thank you!

@ircon96 @Kyeh Deja Huevos?

@Kyeh @yakkoTDI That works, too… Dare i say, it has that multicultural flair!

@Tenorsinging This is my question as well. These have been offered enough times that there should be someone out here that can give a yay or nay

@Tenorsinging @togle https://smolproducts.com/blogs/stories/pros-and-cons-of-the-ecoegg

It appears it works fairly well. Doesn’t work as well as regular detergent on some stains, doesn’t remove bacteria and doesn’t work well on synthetic materials.

So, if your clothes aren’t heavily stained, and are mostly cotton… And you haven’t sweated too heavily, this is probably good enough. If you have nylon/polyester, etc in your clothes and have stains or have sweated a lot,. probably not the best.

But… I suppose, You don’t have to always do one or the other. You could use an egg when appropriate and detergent when it’s not… Get the best of both worlds.

@OnionSoup @togle I looked up the Amazon reviews. Had an average of 4.5

@Tenorsinging We got one in an IRK, and it seems to work well enough for the normal-grime stuff, although I’m pretty sure it won’t go as far as 420 loads. For greasy grubbies when I’ve been doing car surgery, I still use the regular stuff - with spray degreaser preapplied on the worst bits.

@Tenorsinging No, it works about as well as washing your clothes without any detergent. Which on a modern washing machine might actually be surprisingly well! Overall, your best bet is to just use a very small amount of a good liquid laundry detergent.

@Tenorsinging @werehatrack I guess I don’t really even wash the car/lawn surgery clothes. They are only going to be worn for a limited period of time and immediately get hit with a layer of deet/oil. And I don’t much care what my neighbors see me looking like.

@OnionSoup @Tenorsinging @togle Just in case no one noticed, i think it’s relevant to point out that the Smol Products review link above goes to the site of a competitor that makes laundry capsules, so i would take it with a grain (or maybe a block) of salt.

@ircon96 @OnionSoup @Tenorsinging @togle I’ve tried doing a typical load of laundry with no detergent, and while the agitation and rinsing will redistribute dirt and remove a good bit altogether, it doesn’t leave them anywhere near as close to really clean as this egg. Yes, I was suspicious of them, too. I’m no longer suspicious of them; they do work, and their results are good enough for us on the majority of clothing. But I still have regular detergent on hand for loads that need more oomph.

@Tenorsinging Somebody, lay out a pile of soiled clothes. Divide it in half. Wash one load with these eggs, and the other with nothing–I say nothing-- added.

Which came cleaner? About the same? I thought so.

Now wash the load with nothing added and compare to the load washed with the magic rocks in a cage.

Which came cleaner?

Hands down in a fair test, the modern detergents get clothes much, much cleaner today than anything the ancients or your more immediate ancestors ever saw.

The chemist in me is more than a bit suspicious about some hand waving “minerals.”

Well gimme a break. Tell me what the minerals are (limestone maybe, some sort of pH raising rock such as gypsum?) or go home.

Let me say up front. That a little appreciated aspect of the work of Einstein, is that though E=mc2, matter cannot easily be created nor destroyed.

This implies that (and this is important in the context of what I am writing) viz., to get something clean, something else must get dirty.

Water is rather powerful solvent. It is as close as one is going to come in this life to the “Ultimate Solvent” so long sought by alchemists. It will do a fairly good but not perfect job of cleaning on its own.

To this we add a dog’s breakfast of other chemicals, such as detergents and soaps: (sodium alkylbenzene sulfonate, sodium laureth sulfate, sodium lauryl sulfate, ammonium lauryl sulfate and potassium alcohol sulfates) all of which sound like some horrible list of chemicals <gack!>, but are really nothing more than salts of fatty acids, viz. ionic surfactants or soaps.

Soap made from the action of lye or potash on animal fat to saponify it, is a distant and ancient cousin of these more refined ingredients. Of the above list the first one, the sodium alkylbenzene sulfonate is really the only artificial detergent from the days of yore.

Then we have the other amphiphatic moieties, which are also usually nonionic surfactants (such fatty acid ethers (ethoxylated fatty acids) of one sort or another and which help keep the lifted material from the fabrics in micelluar form or emulsified, if you will, to minimize redeposition.

There can be chelating agents such as citric acid, which help to hold heavy ions out of solution, pH modifiers such as sodium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate, and trisodium phosphate. Some of these agents act as water conditioners to help reduce the deposits from hard waters.

Optical brighteners can be added which help to disguise the yellowing of fabrics by absorbing UV light and fluorescing in the visible. In the old days, folks added “bluing” to the wash water to achieve this. Bluing was most commonly a colloidal mix of ferric ferrocyanide aka “Prussian blue” and starch.

Silicones (some variation of dimethyl silicone oil) can be added for suds control. Mama wouldn’t be happy if her precious and expensive detergent overflowed and flooded the floor with suds, now would she?

Sometimes antimicrobials are added to prevent mold growth. Yes, Virginia, there is likely a mold or fungi that will grow on most anything with a bit of moisture present, for evolution is a wonderus thing, particularly at the cellular level of single celled organisms which can both mutate and swap in parallel fashion genetic material.

And let’s not forget fragrance! One could wash clothes cleaner than the Universe at the instant of the Big Bang, but if they didn’t smell clean would the garments really be clean?

For you see, “clean” is a subjective thing more often than not. None of your garments are rendered sterile after all, and even though visible stains may be gone, the general perception is that they aren’t clean if they don’t smell clean!

A great deal of effort goes into formulating perfumes and odorants to both mask and replace any lingering odors of bacterial by-products of sweat and skin oils.

I haven’t addressed atall, atall the whole issue of enzymatic cleaners. Enzymes are molecular machines built of amino acids that operate at the molecular level at incredible rates to create or to break chemical bonds. They are the organic catalysts that make much of life possible. But of the many zillions of enzymes there are a few that are hell on wheels (hell on molecules? hell on atoms?) that are useful for breaking down compounds deposited/adsorbed or absorbed (there is a difference) in garment fibers.

Protease: Degrades protein-based soils
Amylase: Degrades starch-based or carbohydrate soils
Cellulase: Breaks down cotton fibers to release soils
Lipase: Degrades fat-based soils
Mannanase: Degrades food-based stains (cuts mannose sugars bonds)
Pectinase: Degrades fruit-based stains (think wine stains)

Now, tell me that some magic rock/mineral in a plastic squirrel cage is somehow how going to outperform and very highly engineered modern detergent? Do you think that chemists and scientist who work for major soap companies could all be replaced by some sort of rocks in a plastic cage? That all these many centuries folks didn’t have a clue how to clean their garments until this absurd little trinket designed more to separate you and your money came along?

I don’t think so.

But as P.T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

There is no end to gullibility amongst the great unwashed and ill-informed. The same class of folks, who will give sworn anecdotal testament that “Gosh, these things work!” implying that all that science and chemistry of which they haven’t a clue and of which they are supremely distrustful is wrong.

But they, and they alone, are right.

In short, Meh, to this offering. My skepticism runs deep on this one. If someone wants to prove otherwise, show me the data. “In God we trust. All others must have data.”

@Jackinga @Tenorsinging this comment was far too long. Didn’t read it

@Jackinga @Tenorsinging I read it! Fascinating stuff.

Ages ago, I read a test of laundry detergent that was mostly trying to decide if Tide was better than an very inexpensive laundry detergent. They washed a load in Tide, a load in the cheap stuff, and a load in plain water.

The plain water did second best. It’s all about the agitation and water flow, with the high-tech detergent additives doing the extra work on stains and oils, and of course adding smells.

@Jackinga I am totally geeking out at your explanation, lol!

I spent my first year in college as a Bio major, but sadly, it was the advanced math in chem and physics that ultimately made me switch. Ask me about genetics…or anatomy and physiology…or ecology and I was a rock star…but work with moles? Not so much.

I still have regrets, and when I read a post like this it lights up all of those parts of my brain that used to enjoy science so much. (Fortunately, I married a Biologist, so I at least still get to have science-y conversations at home. )

Anyway…I thoroughly enjoyed your post. I do have these eggs, but without some of the critical components you listed, I just can’t bring myself to use it alone. But I have been using less detergent (which is probably better anyway…I’m sure I used more than necessary before) so hopefully I’m getting the best of both worlds…or at the very least, a little extra agitation with the egg.

@Jackinga @Tenorsinging They contain Calcium carbonate, Oxirane,2-(chioromethyl)-homopolymer, Saponin, Sodium C14-16 Olefin sulfonate, Sodium carbonate, Dodecan-1-ol, ethoxylated, Aluminium hydroxide.

Nothing magical, just a different delivery technique - via slowly dissolving pellets instead of a liquid or powder.

@Jackinga @rpstrong @Tenorsinging “Nothing magical, just a different delivery technique - via slowly dissolving pellets instead of a liquid or powder.”
So it sounds like someone at the detergent manufacturer figured out they could buy the leftover sludge waste from the process for cheap, then push it through a cheap pellet die and dryer…

@rpstrong @Tenorsinging (Sorry @laurengx3 this is going to be another TL:DR.)

Well there you go. But if the claim of 420 washes is to be believed the dissolution rate and the corresponding concentration of these agents must be very small in the wash water.

What has got me stumped for the moment is the “oxirane-2-chloromethly homopolymer,” and why it should be there at all.

That is a fancy name for a polymerized form of epichlorohydrin, an alkylating agent and potential carcinogen in the monomer form.

Epichlorhydrin is a key component along with certain amine resins in making wet strength resins in paper making. These low molecular weight resins containing epichlorohydrin lightly bind and cross-link individual fibers in a paper matrix, which is why the world uses paper towels today instead of rags.

Remember those endless commercials from the 1970s where Rosie the waitress (Nancy Walker) picks up a cup of coffee with saucer with a wet paper towel? That was our Kymene wet strength resin which made paper towels strong and reusable like cloth if one wiped, rinsed them and wiped again.

Invented in the 1950s by chemist, Jerry Keim, and named and marketed by as Kymene wet strength resin by Hercules Incorporated since the 1950s, it revolutionized and made possible the paper towel industry.

I knew and worked with Jerry Keim, btw, and at one time I was the R&D Technology manager for Kymene and other paper chemicals.

So is this being used as some sort of slow release binding agent for the other things? I dunno.

The calcium carbonate is basically limestone as I thought, and some of the other components such as the Sodium C14-16 Olefin sulfonate are respectively soap/detergent, and the ethoxylated dodecan-1-ol is a surfactant ether compound used for redeposition control.

The sodium carbonate is a pH control used to help control hard water issues, and the saponin sounds to me like a sudsing agent.

What is missing is any fragrance. And Mama ain’t gonna be happy unless her wash smell clean! Back in the day when clothes were line dried outside, the ultraviolet in sunlight and fresh air gave washed clothes a wonderful smell faintly like ozone.

With the advent of indoor dryers, we have replaced that natural process with perfumes and odorants–mostly terpenes of some form or another. At one time, I was also the R&D Program manager for our resins division where we isolated many of these commercial odorants from pine stumps.

So AFAIK, no perfumes.

That is my 50,000’ view of the mystery rocks. I could be and probably am wrong about some of these things. If someone who is ex-P&G or Unilever technical staff wants to chime in I am all ears and will readily stand corrected.

But the bottom line is that this isn’t magic as @k4evyring says.

Soaps and detergents are needed to get soil, grease, and grime from fabrics if one is using aqueous cleaning methods.

Dry cleaning, OTH, does some to the same sort of thing but uses perchlorinated aliphatic solvents (now being banned for being hazardous to health.)

@Jackinga @laurengx3 @rpstrong @Tenorsinging For some of us, “no perfumes” is a very desirable or even mandatory feature of a laundry detergent. Around here, Mama gonna be in a murderous rage if she can smell that crap in the wash, 'cause it means everything has to go back through again before it can get sorted, folded and put away. And in some cases, the washing machine may have to go through one or two empty full-depth cycles with some scavenging chemistry to get that crap off the interior bits before it’s safe to use for clothes.

So YMMV on stench, brighteners (I know two people who are allergic to those), and softener additives; not everyone wants them, and some folks actively want to NOT have them. (And we often end up paying extra to not have them in the product.)

@Jackinga @laurengx3 @rpstrong @Tenorsinging
That is interesting. But …

Mama ain’t gonna be happy unless her wash smell clean

I’m no Mama but I don’t want any of those scents, thank you! Unscented all the way, for me. I have perfumes if I want a fragrance.

@Kyeh Ditto. Team unscented for me too.

@hchavers I heard on TikTok that pods are delicious!

@ballen The collective experience and the distribution of lore has been shifting the cultural attitude about corporations for decades. We’re not yet back to the public’s distrust of them as it existed during the heyday of unionization before WWII, but it’s headed that way.

@ballen @werehatrack counterpoint: will still surrender all personal privacy and social boundaries for some good social media scrollin’