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Whether you regularly face serious stains or simply want your grubby laundry fresh and clean, a good laundry detergent can do it all—without irritating your skin or your fabrics.
We pitted more than 35 detergents against a slew of stains and odors (on all kinds of laundry, from stained T-shirts to smelly socks). Tide Ultra Oxi Powder Laundry Detergent and Tide Free & Gentle Liquid Laundry Detergent consistently and effectively removed a wider variety of stains than the competition.
Tide Ultra Oxi Powder Laundry Detergent – The best powder detergent
Wiping out nearly every type of stain that came its way, Tide Ultra Oxi Powder Laundry Detergent was hands down the best powder detergent we tested.
This light-scented detergent knocked out a variety of stubborn stains in our testing, easily removing blood, grass, dirt, and sebum (body oil). It’s the only detergent we assessed that nearly eliminated an egg-based, turmeric-infused stain, and it fully removed the scent of bacon grease.
However, this detergent didn’t clean greasy stains as well as our liquid picks, and the box can be heavy and unwieldy.
Tide Free & Gentle Liquid Laundry Detergent
Tide Free & Gentle Liquid Laundry Detergent stands out for its stain elimination power, dye- and fragrance-free formula, and wide availability (some of the free and clear formulas we tested are harder to find).
Some other detergents cleaned specific stains better (including red wine and tea), but Tide Free & Gentle liquid detergent did a consistently excellent job overall of removing stains—particularly grease- and oil-based messes—and tackling odors.
Persil ProClean Original Liquid Laundry Detergent – A strongly scented, stain-lifting liquid detergent
Persil ProClean Original Liquid Laundry Detergent performed very well on all kinds of stains, tackling tea, cocoa, and a chocolate-based dessert stain particularly well.
Its strong, lingering scent, however, can be polarizing. (It does come in a fragrance-free formula, though it didn’t clean quite as well as the original.)
Tide Pods Free & Gentle Laundry Detergent
Tide Pods Free & Gentle Laundry Detergent cleaned very well in our testing, tackling grass and pig blood with ease. But they didn’t perform quite as strongly as our top powder and liquid picks.
These concentrated, single-dose pods are light and easy to use, and they may appeal to those who find it difficult to lug or pour out bottles or boxes of detergent.
Pods take some of the guesswork out of dosing detergent, but they don’t allow you to precisely adjust the amount for larger or smaller loads, or pretreat stains. These pods are the smallest of the most effective pods we tested, which makes it easier to avoid using too much detergent for a smaller load or to add a second pod for larger ones.
Tide Free & Gentle pods do not contain dyes and are fragrance free.