Tide Coldwater - good for the laundry, the budget and nature

I received a couple of days ago my Tide Coldwater detergent through a campaign with shespeaks.com and sponsored by P&G, the manufacturers of Tide products. The free sample was provided to me in exchange for testing the new formula in my washer and reviewing the outcome on my blog.

copyright Durhamonthecheap - the letter that arrived with the campaign kit

I am not a particularly brand conscious shopper when it comes to detergents. I have purchased Tide in the past, but I certainly buy other products depending on what is on sale. This may change somewhat now.
I have usually washed my clothes on hot/cold combination to make sure that they get clean, especially white cotton clothing. I have only used the cold cycle if the fabrics required it thinking that using cold water only may affect on how effective any stains or other dirt are removed. So when Tide Coldwater arrived, I was not overly confident about the outcome. My washer, a budget model that is now well past 10 years old, has a cold/cold setting, so cheating was not possible and I selected the all coldwater cycle and loading up the washer with a medium load of items that I normally would wash on hot/cold setting. I included fleece shirts, comforters and sweats of various colors. I had saved a couple of items from last weeks laundry for comparison. I did not intentionally stain any of my clothes, but working in the yard, my green fleece shirt had gotten dirty.

copyright Durhamonthecheap - the actual bottle. I like the fact that no dyes or perfumes are added!

The instructions are fairly simple, the bottle has instruction for how much detergent to use for medium and large loads. I did leave out the Tide Stain release capsules that I had started using since I wanted to rely on the detergent effect alone. After the laundry was done, I peeked a little bit at the laundry as I moved them into the dryer and the colors were nice and bright - also none of the clothing had any overt stains left. So I felt much more confident that I did not have to repeat laundry.

copyright - Durhamonthecheap - comparison of fleece sweater between Tide Coldwater and "another detergent"

The picture above shows a comparison of the two fleece shirts. The green shirt was washed in Tide Coldwater and has no stains and no left-over schmutz. The white shirt was washed the week before in another detergent and even though no stains are present and the washer was set to hot/cold with a comparable load, there is some schmutz visible and I will have to wash the shirt again. While one laundry is certainly not representative as a sample, I am honestly very impressed with Tide Coldwater. It effectively cleaned the clothes with less effect on the environment and I saved some money by using cold water in the washer. I will definitely continue to use Tide Coldwater, even if the clothes do not require the lower wash temperature.

Disclaimer: I was supplied a free bottle of Tide Coldwater laundry detergent through a campaign by shespeaks.com and sponsored by P&G, the manufacturers of Tide Coldwater. In exchange for an honest review on my blog, I may receive further reimbursement. Neither the free detergent nor any other benefit through my association with shespeaks.com or any of its campaign sponsors has influenced the opinions on this blog and the statements made in the product reviews are solely my own.