Curious about laundry? Me too. I LOVE doing laundry and I hope this helps you love it too.
last edited: Nov 11, 2025
tl dr; you’re missing lipase (and other things) from your laundry detergent and your clothes aren’t as clean as they can be. Pick from this list for detergents and add an oxyclean booster powder of your choice if it doesn’t say “yes” in the oxygen bleach column.
What do I use?:
For everything but black cotton clothes: Tide clean & gentle powder. I sometimes add a little Oxyclean Free (no dyes or fragrances) for extra hydrogen peroxide.
Black cottons (to avoid OBAs): Biz detergent + Oxyclean Free -OR- 365 by Whole Foods + Oxyclean Free
Pillar 1: THE CHEMISTRY
This is the most complex part, and where most marketing lives. Here’s what’s actually in the bottle.
1.1 The Problem: Why Water Isn't Enough
Water is a fantastic solvent, but it has one major problem: oil and water don't mix. Most of the "dirt" on our clothes—like body oils (sebum), food grease, and greasy grime—is non-polar and won't dissolve in water, which is polar.
1.2 The Solution: Detergent
Detergent is a mix of ingredients, but its main hero is the surfactant.
1.2a Surfactants (The Main Weapon):
Think of a surfactant molecule as a tadpole. It has a "head" that loves water (hydrophilic) and a "tail" that hates water but loves oil (hydrophobic).
How it works:
The oil-loving tails burrow into the greasy stain on your shirt.
The water-loving heads stick out, facing the wash water.
As the machine tumbles, the surfactants lift the oil off the fabric, forming a tiny bubble around it called a micelle.
This micelle is now "water-friendly" on the outside, so it happily dissolves in the wash water and gets rinsed away.
Learn more about Surfactants here —> LINK
1.2b Oxygen Bleach (The Sidekick):
This ingredient is a must-have for clean clothes. The ingredients will say something along the lines of: percarbonate, perborate, or hydrogen peroxide
How it works:
The hydrogen peroxide is released to perform the oxidation (“bleaching” without actual (sodium hypochlorite) bleach like Clorox).
The sodium carbonate is a powerful "builder." It increases the water's pH (makes it more alkaline) and softens the water, which dramatically boosts the cleaning power of both the peroxide and the regular detergent.
1.2c TAED / Tetraacetylethylenediamine (The Sidekick’s Squire):
TAED is an oxygen bleach activator for cold water cycles
How it works:
As great as oxygen bleach is, it has a fatal flaw. Hydrogen peroxide is a sluggish and ineffective bleach in cold water. It really only becomes an effective stain remover at temperatures above 60 degrees Celsius or 150 degrees in freedom units.
TAED solves this problem by reacting with the hydrogen peroxide (through a chemical reaction called perhydrolysis) and creating Peracetic Acid, a more aggressive and faster-acting version of hydrogen peroxide. Most importantly, it works extremely well in cold water, as low as 30 degrees Celsius or 86 degrees in freedom units.
You might encounter NOBS (sodium nonanoyloxybenzenesulfonate) instead of TAED as an ingredient. It works in a very similar way but makes a slightly different peroxy acid.
1.2d Enzymes (The Specialists):
These are biological "scissors" that break down specific types of stains into smaller, easier-to-remove pieces. They are why modern detergents work so well without harsh ingredients that have a negative environmental impact (e.g. sodium tripolyphosphate and other “phosphates”). A big problem is that companies have been taking out enzymes to cut costs. Most companies have silently removed lipase from their ingredient list, one of the most important enzymes if you want clean laundry.
The different types of enzymes:
Lipase: Breaks down fat/oil stains (e.g., human & pet oils, butter, salad dressing, ring-around-the-collar).
If you had to pick one enzyme you MUST HAVE in your laundry routine, this is the one. The rest are nice to haves and are stain dependent.
Protease: Breaks down protein stains (e.g., blood, grass, sweat, baby food).
Warning: cannot be used on animal fibers because it will break down the fibers
Amylase: Breaks down starch stains (e.g., gravy, pasta, potato).
Pectate Lyase: Breaks down plant stains (e.g. fruit, vegetable, grass)
Mannanase: Breaks down complex sugar molecules commonly found in processed foods (e.g. ice cream, sauces, mayo)
DNAse: Breaks down DNA, nucleotides, phosphodiester bonds (e.g. people and pet stains)
Cellulase: Breaks down cellulose
Cellulase isn’t for stains but more of a fabric care product. It reduces fuzz and pilling on clothes made from natural fibers (e.g. cotton, linen)
It can help make colors look “brighter” since the core of the fibers are duller than the dye on the outside of the fiber strand
It can make clothes feel softer by removing the stray ends of fibers
1.2e Builders (The Water Softeners):
This is the unsung hero. "Hard water" is full of minerals (like calcium and magnesium). These minerals love to bond with surfactants, "using them up" before they can even get to the dirt.
Builders (like citrates or older phosphates) bind to these minerals, "softening" the water so the surfactants are free to do their real job: attack the stains.
1.2f Optical Brighteners / OBA (The "Optical Trick"):
These don’t clean clothes but make your whites and colors brighter by absorbing invisible UV light and re-emit it as visible blue light.
Avoid this ingredient for black clothes you don’t want “fading”. It’s not truly fading the black dye, but it can make it look more dull due to the blue light.
1.2g HE Antifoam:
It can be helpful to have silicone antifoaming polymers to reduce foaming in high-efficiency machines. This becomes more important if you’re a chronic overdoser of detergent
Here’s a little more detail.
The Problem: Oversudsing in a Low-Water World
To understand why foam is the enemy, you have to compare "Old vs. New" washing technology:
Traditional Top-Loaders: Used a huge amount of water (30-40 gallons). Clothes were submerged and "sloshed" around by a central agitator. Suds had plenty of water to dissolve in and would just float on top.
High-Efficiency (HE) Machines: Use a tiny amount of water (10-15 gallons). They work by tumbling clothes, lifting them out of a shallow pool of water and dropping them back in.
This tumbling action aggressively smashes air into the soapy water, which is the perfect recipe for creating massive, stable foam. If you use a traditional, high-sudsing detergent in an HE machine, you get an "oversudsing" disaster.
It causes inefficient mechanical friction by creating a soft pillow of air between clothing, inefficient rinsing of detergent and leaving residue in your clothing, and straining of the machine’s water pump.
Pillar 2: The Temperature
Most people are running their machines too cold. The hotter the water, the faster chemical reactions happen and oils dissolve. And if you’re using oxygen bleach (as you should) in your load, it doesn’t activate properly in cold water. Warm setting is the minimum temperature required unless you have TAED in the ingredient list of your laundry detergent or booster. The downside of the hot water setting is that it can fade colors, set protein-based stains, and can’t be used for delicate natural fibers like wool and silk. So, when do you use what setting?
Hot Water: Towels & white sheets
Cold Water: delicate natural fibers like wool, silk, alpaca, angora, etc
Warm Water: everything else
But what about the colors and shrinking?
Colors running: Ideally, you would start by separating your colors (I get that this is very unlikely realistically). Secondly, make sure you have anti-redoposition agents in the detergent ingredient list. This keeps soil and dye in the water from going back onto fabrics. Lastly, you can add a sheet of color catchers in the load, and it will grab onto any rogue dye in the water.
Shrinking: Most of the shrinking happens in the dryer and not the wash. Hang dry clothes you don’t want shrinking at all, or when you tumble dry, use the ultra-low heat setting. Most high-quality cotton clothing will also use “pre-shrunk” cotton too.
Pillar 3: The Mechanical Action & Time
3. 1 This is the physical "scrubbing" provided by the washing machine.
Top-Loaders (with Agitator): Use a central post to "churn" the clothes, creating high friction. This is very effective (high mechanical action) but can be harsh on fabrics.
Front-Loaders & HE Top-Loaders: Use a tumbling or "lifting" motion. They lift the clothes and drop them back into the shallow pool of water. This uses less water and relies more on clothes-on-clothes friction, which is gentler. This also means there is a minimum threshold of items you need to get your clothes clean.
3.2 This one is simple: the longer the wash cycle, the more time the chemistry, temperature, and agitation have to work on the soil.
A "Quick Wash" cuts this time dramatically, so it's only effective for very lightly soiled items. I almost never run a quick wash.
A "Heavy Duty" or "extra dirty" cycle extends the time, giving the enzymes a chance to break down tough stains before the main wash even begins.
You can always pause your machine after the initial scrubbing cycle or use the “soak” function to give the enzymes and oxygen bleach extra time with the clothing without adding additional friction time.
Pillar 4: Rinse
Even with modern machines, due to the difference in hardness of water, cycle times, and inaccurate detergent dosing, there will often be detergent leftover in your clothes. This can be extremely irritating to your skin because detergent is very basic with a high pH. Here are some things you can do:
Add additional rinse cycles
Use less detergent per cycle
Add 10mL (2 teaspoons) of dry citric acid to the “fabric softener” tray and fill up to the “max line” with water. This will go into the washing machine during the last rinse cycle.
How it works:
The Problem: Most laundry detergents, especially powders, are highly alkaline (high pH). This is great for cleaning but bad if the residue doesn't fully rinse out. Alkaline residue left on fibers:
Makes fabric feel stiff, harsh, and scratchy
Can trap odors
Can irritate sensitive skin (your skin is naturally acidic)
The Solution: Citric acid is an acid (low pH). When added to the final rinse, it neutralizes the alkaline detergent residue, bringing the pH of the fabrics back down to a more neutral or slightly acidic state. This releases the stiffening residue and leaves the fibers feeling significantly softer and cleaner.
The second function is that citric acid is a powerful chelating agent and binds dissolved minerals like calcium and magnesium. This is especially important if you have hard water. These minerals build up on your clothes in the wash, creating a dull, gray, and stiff mineral "crust" over time (this is what causes towels to become scratchy). By binding these minerals, the citric acid prevents them from sticking to your clothes and washes them away down the drain instead. It’s great for your machine too since it prevents build up of minerals inside the drum and pipes.
Pillar 5: Maintenance
After each load (only applicable for front washers), wipe the glass door and gusset, and grab any hair that collected in the gusset so it doesn’t clog the drain.
Between loads, keep the door of the washing machine open to prevent the “moldy” smell.
Once a month, you want to descale and clean your machine. You can use a tablet (e.g. Affresh) in an empty tub and run the clean cycle or the hottest cycle with the highest water level. The important ingredients to look for is something acidic that descales the machine (e.g. citric acid) and an oxygen bleach. Once it’s done, wipe everything down, including all the gussets (bonus points if you take it out to wipe) and doors.
Once a quarter, clean the filter (only applicable for front washers). These are located in the front of your machine, usually behind a little rectangular door under the main glass door. Put down a rag, drain the hose into an empty container, and then twist to unlock the filter. The whole filter should come out with ease. You can soak this in vinegar or a citric acid bath if it has a lot of calcium residue build up.
Putting it all together
This is all great information but what product should you buy? This becomes tricky because there’s no one-size-fits-all. The most important ingredients you’re looking for are: good surfactant, oxygen bleach, lipase, and HE antifoam. Unfortunately, lipase is an expensive ingredient and most laundry companies have removed them to cut costs. Here is a Google doc that has all of the lipase-containing brands and products. To note, this list was not made by me! You can have your mainstay detergent + boosters (different tabs) as needed for various stains and lifestyles.
For example, if you’re trying to avoid fragrances, the Tide clean & gentle powder is a great option. If you live near a whole foods and don’t mind fragrances, their sport liquid detergent is very lightly scented and contains the rare DNAse in addition to lipase. If you’re going through the rest of the detergent you already own, Biz stain & odor eliminator powder is a great booster to add (1/2C directly in the drum before clothes). This adds lipase, oxygen booster, and other core enzymes. The warning here on Biz is that it is very lightly scented.
Things you absolutely don’t need are: fabric softeners of any kind (they’re terrible for your machine, leave residues on your fabric, and not great for sensitive skin) and fragrances. The goal of laundry should be to have clothes come out smelling completely neutral and soft.
Wishing you all the cleanest and scentless clothes, sheets, and towels <3