TSP and STPP are chemically different. STPP degrades to TSP over time with exposure to moisture (STPP should be stored in an airtight container). TSP forms a precipitate when it interacts with hard water, STPP does not. STPP is the choice for laundry.

Laundry Room Form FAQ - What is STPP?

STPP for sure, but it's a chore to find.

How so?

STPP @ TheChemistryStore.com

Well it is a bit more of a commitment to order a large(er) quantity of the stuff from the good folks at The Chemistry Store vs. running over to the local hardware outlet and picking up some. That being said, my order from those guys should be in tomorrow! The also said that their "pails" have gaskets so maintaining a moisture-tight seal should be pretty straightforward... which is good, because this supply should last quite a while.

My last message didn't make it on...basically saying thank you for the link above. Dad gets points for calling that before I did.

And thank you again for the link to the Chemistry Store. I might just have to put their site on mine.

Exactly how quickly does the STPP degrade? I buy the smallest bucket from the Chemistry Store and it lasts maybe 2 months? I don't seal up the container, just throw the lid on but don't fasten it. I do way too much laundry to be prying that lid off every time. Thanks!

Tracey

According to the FAQ:

"STPP has one weakness, and that is that over time, with exposure to water, it will decompose into a mono-phosphate, or "orthophosphate", called trisodiumphosphate, or TSP. TSP is often used for cleaning hard surfaces where a precipitate is not a problem, but due to its precipitate formation is not favored for laundry use. "

TSP also works, but from what I understand is tricky to handle (more of an irritant) and can precipitate as describe above. Could be that you're using yours up before the whole batch goes changes -- I just don't know what the rate of degradation is.

real tsp is harder to find these days- at least in California. They have tsp substitutes and call them TSP. Tri-sodium Phosphate- the real stuff is used as a traditional painting prep technique. It de-glosses the paint- taking a semi gloss down to satin or matte. So the paint sticks properly to the rougher surface. It works like sandpaper...

Also evil on your skin- it strips all the moisture INSTANTLY. No really. I use it all the time and will not use it without gloves. My brother did once and within a few hours his hands were on the verge of bleeding they were so dry.

Bottom line- probably not great for your clothes. Borax and vinegar may be better and not so nasty. Both seem to work well with hard water, i know hard water. Vinegar is cheap and very effective.

I ended up getting some STPP from the Chemistry Store link and it really helps boost cleaning power for really nasty stuff in our hard water. And from the sound of things it is a lot safer to have around than TSP, which is also good.

mysteryclock

i'll recommend to my mom. The water in the house I grew up in is so lime filled that she gets stalagmites in the dishwasher. I've never seen anything like it! My whole family has skin problems and I think the water did it. My parents recently got a whole house filter but if that didn't do it, maybe the STPP would.

About the TSP, yeah, illegal to sell in California. I'd say it's toxic. Or at least very bad for your skin.

STPP will certainly boost washing power in hard water, and a little bit goes a long way. I think back to those HUGE cups / scoops of Tide, etc. that were used back in the 70s (and were probably 30-40% STPP) and it is no wonder so many pounds of phosphates were going down the drain. I use one teaspoon, occasionally two at most on the tough loads, which probably isn't hugely more than my dishwasher uses with Cascade.

Speaking of which, Lemishine works wonders for hard water / frosted glasses / stalagmites in dishwashers and it is phosphate free.

mysteryclock's comment about the tsp in cascade reminded me... a few weeks back I saw an article in the news about the state of Washington (or at least some towns/counties there) banning the use of them in dishwasher detergent, so it has been reformulated for sale there and people are crossing state lines as their dishes are not cleaning well now... basic gist of the article was this will happen across the country at some point... bust to keep this chemistry store link around maybe we'll all be tossing it into our dishwashers too....

I read that too -- I plan on checking with my local State Rep to see what the current & pending laws are here too. Personally, I think as long as there are no issues with eutrophication in the local watershed then they should leave well enough alone. After all phosphates are, apparently, still legal for commercial and medical laundry and still legal here for dishwashers so they are still getting into the environment.

I think the % reduction in phosphate content (down to the 10-ish % range) for such products coupled with a huge decrease with the volume of detergent being used and increase in detergent & washers efficiencies have reduced the overall amount going into the environment quite a bit.

The more I read, the more I'm convinced that many of the alternatives for increasing washing power that have been tried over time (NTA or manganese catalyst, for instance) are more trouble than benefit compared to phosphates.

mysteryclock and plumbly22

interesting about the phosphates, especially the amount in the old school cleaning stuff. We have boxes of TSP around because my grandmother used it for everything. Now I know why! I only use it for prepping painted surfaces and only for applications where there is heavy soil and/or very high quality (expensive, labor intensive) finishes going on top. It's strong stuff.

The TSP substitute works fine but the old stuff is better. You don't need much for paint prep, a box lasts years!

About the dishwasher thing- I'm curious about what's in the gelpacks I use. I switched over to those orange scented gel packs (i'll look at the brand later, Electrosol? maybe) at the behest of my electrician. He has a thing for high end German appliances too and got me to switch. it's INSANE the difference. I use one gel pack and have the Jet Dri setting almost turned off on my Gaggenau dishwasher. The whole thing is stainless, inside and out and since the first couple of gel packs, my dishes and dishwasher have not been more spotless.

I was floored how well they work. Don't know what they put in them but i get zero water spots and you can eat off the door of the dishwasher. I switched from old Cascade powder and Jet dri and never looked back. WOW.

And they aren't "illegal" in California. They are so strict about all phosphates and even oil based paints. I think it's good but from a professional perspective, i miss some of the products that worked better (marine stripper!! certain nice oil based paints)

Anyway, I'll try and figure out what's in those gel packs because I'd drive to Mexico even with Swine Flu to get them if I had to. They are that good. The old system made me crazy- so many water spots. I even run my lead crystal in the dishwasher sometimes now. it squeaks when I take it out. It's my one bad for you cleaning supply indulgence. i can't help it, i like clean dishes!!

There should be a phosphate disclosure on the side of the box. I'd be interested to see what that is on yours. I think my Cascade Complete pacs are listed at no more than 8% phosphorus, or 1.1g/tsp and those plus the Lemishine work great for me.

One other thing the folks in WA may be missing is the water usage problem. Granted they aren't exactly short of water in that state but if people are having to re-wash or hand-wash their dishes AFTER running them through the DW they are doubling or tripling their water usage vs. just getting them clean the first time around. Same story for laundry -- if you have to re-wash something that didn't get clean the first time you're immediately at 2x water usage, which is bad.

Hmmm. I'll look. I do rinse my dishes well before i put them in, more because my fiance likes to do it that way. A compromise. I'd rinse a bit less, i usually rinse things as soon as I'm done anyway so it never gets as stuck on as it would if you just leave it to dry. But water usage is important. I'm trying to be better about it. Especially here in Los Angeles. We don't actually have water to waste. But I rarely have to redo something from that dishwasher. It's really good. And so quiet i make the mistake of not knowing it's on all the time.

I'll look at the phosphate levels, i am curious and maybe i'll figure out what is making those little miracles work so well. I won't even change from Orange scent to regular. i don't want to mess with this essentially perfect system!

Dishes should NOT be rinsed before loading into a dishwasher! Scrape, yes. Rinse, NO. The detergent (particularly enzyme formulations) needs some food soil on which to work (animal or plant fats are an ingredient of soap), or it'll attack the dishes over time, leading to etching of glassware.

I have heard that. I haven't seen any evidence of this on my dishes. With 2 people in the house, it sometimes takes a while before i run a load (food gets dried on), other times i run it multiple times a day. My glasses are all fine, no etching. I'd be more worried about my Emil Henry ceramics but they look fantastic. Rinsing seems fine with this particular dishwasher.Also I run my silver through all the time. It's fine too.

Well... I FULLY admit to being a total slug/slob with regards tot he dishwasher and scrapping/rinsing... I do make sure that there are not clumps of stuff onthe dishes, but for example we had pasta 2 nights ago, i picked up the empty plates with sauce onthem and set them in the dishwasher (no pasta remaining) and tonight it was mashed potatoes, dressing and turkey, again, empty plates with 'residue' straight into the machine... my theory here is it's a dishwasher... if it doesn't clean my dishes it needs service or replacement... this is why it has an initial rinse cycle to 'rinse off' the dishes prior the 'washing' them right??? ah..but beware... you must buy a machine with an inline garbage disposal under this approach otherwise you are forever cleaning out that 'basket' that is in the European models... y u c k!!!

fwiw... kitchenaid all the way...

back to the topis of tsp and stpp... I'll probably order a bucket of the stpp and see if it helps with my collar rings on my sons school uniform shirts... Taylor form Charlie's has been working with me on ideas... I just ordered some liquid laundry form him to pretreat with to see if that helps... I've already tried adding the tsp... which helped a bit, but didn't 'fix' the issue (maybe the son should shower more often???)

Plumby

My fiance wears a suit every day so I see a lot of collared shirts. Most are laundered but the ones that aren't I give a swipe of Kirk's Castile soap to the collar if they get grimy. It's like a dollar for a bar of it and it's great. If the Kirk's can't get it out, i make a paste with borax, the kirk's soap, and a small amount of water and hit it with a toothbrush. The key is do it when the shirt is dry and only use enough water to wet the soap. Just like grandma, my mom and my aunt, i use that Kirk's soap for any stubborn stains. My uncle restores antique cars and it works on his work clothes even. I get it at the Jon's market- an ethnic grocery store. But the bars last for years.

Are you using that Charlie's soap too? I have not tried it yet. I may have to hit the whole foods and give it a try. I love that Method stuff but boy is it expensive and I like using the most natural stuff I can. I think it's pretty benign though. I'd assume that is what all the talk of TSP and STPP came from. I'm just curious about Charlie's. Seems like people LOVE it.

I don't get it.
If you are wanting to use a natural type laundry detergent, why would you want to have to add chemicals to it that are potentially bad for the environment? They are banned in some states.

I tried Charlie's Soap, but it didn't work well for me due to the hard city water I have. I wasn't worth it for me to have to order yet something else to add to it to help it perform better. I have read many times that after someone has been using Charlies for awhile their clothes become dingy and are told to add this or that chemical to it.

I do admit that I'm not a chemist and maybe I don't understand exactly why these additives are needed, and I do also realize that there are also other additives in national brand detergents, but it just seems kind of silly to me to buy a 'natural' detergent then add a chemical to it. Would a water softener like Calgon work, or not? I realize Calgon would also probably be more expensive than STTP too.

This is not directed at anyone or meant as an attack, just a legitimate question and concern.

Janet

I've been using Charlie's for close to 2 years now exclusively.... with that said the ONLY problem I have eincountered in that time sprung up this year with my son's (14YO) dress shirts for school. About half way through the school year they started to develop "ring around the collar". They are a cotton/polyester blend, my husbands shirts are 100% cotton... I believe this is somehow the difference, but short of going to the custom shirt shop, I've not located boy sized dress shirts in 100% cotton at an affordable price for someone who is growing faster than my grass outside right now.

I emailed Taylor and explained my problem and he gave me several possible ideas to try... stronger dosing of Charlies, soaking in the all purpose charlies, pretreating with the liquid laundry charlies, tsp/stpp, and I forget what else... my liquid laundry charlie's has been shipped but has not arrived, but that is my next try. If I have a problem still after that, truthfully at this point I'm not sure if I'll followup with another approach or not, since as of May 1st DS can switch to polos for remaining month of school, and then the problem temporarily goes away until fall.

I lilke to keep my options open... and IF I need to do something special for one type of clothing... that doesn't strike me as totally unusual. I've stopped all fabric softner and bleach or bleach like products by switching to Charlie's... I just have this one minor persistent problem that doesn't want to go away... but like I said... it could be the 14 YO needs more showers and to wash better with soap around his neck... but obviously he's not letting me in there to make sure it gets done!

Janet,

Fair question. The thing is, assuming that you aren't dumping large quantities of it into the environment and you don't have any local environmental problems because of it, STPP appears to be among the most benign of the possible "additives" and it does many good things to improve washing performance at the same time. See the very well written FAQ in the second message of the thread and let me know what you think.

As for Calgon, from what I understand the original 70's product was sodium hexametaphosphate, a chemical cousin of STPP (i.e. still phosphates.) The current powder is ~40% sodium carbonate (washing soda), ~20% sodium citrate and ~25% sodium sulfate. The liquid is ~5% sodium hydroxide and ~8% citric acid.

All chemicals of course...it is just a matter of which ones you choose. I know Charlie's (and a lot of other detergents) already contain sodium carbonate.

BTW, surprisingly the Calgon website also says this (which I wasn't aware of):

Q: Can CALGON® Water Softener be used with Front Loading Washers?

A: We cannot recommend CALGON® Water Softener for this use for it has not been tested in this type of machine.

I read the FAQ article you mentioned and though it was quite interesting and very informative, I am still a bit confused on all this chemical jargon. I never claimed I was the brightest bulb, lol. But is STPP primarily a phosphate or a water softener? Or it it the same? What about good old Borax? It claims it boosts detergent power and softens the water.

But I would think that if one was concerned enough to search out a 'natural' type laundry detergent, it was because they didn't want all those additives that are in other products and potentially bad for the environment. Otherwise, why not just buy a detergent that already contains a phosphate?

I have to admit, all the talk on here about adding this to your laundry piqued my interest and I have been wondering, does it really make that much difference in how clean it gets your clothes. So off I went to the local Mexican store and checked out the detergents they sold there that supposedly have phosphates in them.
Ariel, Foca, Roma and another that the name escapes me now, but the bag it came in was orange and resembled the look of a Tide box. Unfortunately, I am not fluent in Spanish and so I could not understand what exactly the labels were saying since there was no English printing on them I was not able to find out what the actual ingredients were in each of the brands.

Maybe I'll start a thread about these detergents and maybe someone with knowledge about them will chime in and enlighten me as to what the ingredients are and if any are compatible with an HE machine.

But I appreciate your answer and all the info you provided.

Janet

Ariel, Foca, Roma, and ... Ace, perhaps? These are not HE-formulated, unless you can find the "bajaespuma" (low suds) formula of any of them. Roma in particular tends to be high sudsing. They can work in an HE toploader or toploader, but managing the dosage to prevent oversudsing may be tricky. The trigger-point for my water condition is 2 to 3 oz. depending on load size & soil level More than that, and BOOM! Lots of suds.

As for STPP, it does give a noticeable boost to cleaning when using non- or low-phosphate detergents. Use it regularly, and whites will get a little better after each wash until some old stains may fade away.

The article below confirms that STPP was indeed used in detergents. From what it says, you can also gather that STPP is 1/4 phosphate by weight, which is useful if you want to calibrate your phosphate usage.

I might get some of this stuff. But of course, if you add it to commercial detergent, it doesn't change the fact that the detergent still includes the inferior phosphate substitutes, with their reputed bad side effects. And hopefully there's no interaction between those ingredients and the STPP. Suddenly I realize why one might want to blend their own detergent.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.wvnet.org/downloads/posted%20apr172005%20PSIG/Litke_1991%20USGS%2099-4007%20Phosphorus%20control%20measures%20and%20effect%20on%20water%20quality.pdf

Suburbanmd,

That is an excellent point, and it is probably why you don't hear a lot of folks around here adding STPP to Tide / Cheer / Persil or other big-company brands of detergent that already contain a bunch of other stuff. Most folks seem to be adding it to Charlie's, Method or their own blends that have a comparatively short list of ingredients.

If I'd taken Organic Chemistry in college or knew more about coconut-based surfactants (and had more time on my hands) I'd probably blend my own.

I add it to all my loads. Right now I'm using depending on load, Cheer powder, Gain HE powder, Sport-Wash, and Tide Total Care. I won't do laundry without it. I definitely understand the concern of chemicals in detergents but I don't understand how you get out stains without them. I may try some Method or Seventh Generation +Stpp and see what kind of results I get but I know I'll still have to use shout or something similiar.

Tracey

I'm curious, I've read about stpp here for years. Does anyone use it with a whole house water softener? I'd love to try it, but I've been afraid to because my water has already been softened.

Go ahead. Water softening is not all STPP does, there are other benefits.

Thanks Dadoes - I get over to the chem store and order some.

How much TSPP should be added per load of laundry?

I go 1:1 - one scoop (tbsp) of Charlie's and one scoop of STTP. I read somewhere that STPP is 15% phosphorus by weight so assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that they weigh the same / similar per tbsp. that'd be... 7.5% phosphorus by weight, per washload(?) By comparison, my Cascade Complete dishwasher pacs are 8% by weight.

Feel free to correct my math if I'm off on the %s!

Hi to every one. Saw this and it helped! https://mises.org/library/why-everything-dirtier Also read comments for good chemist explaination. I just cared about the link because it had good explanations and it really works for my dishwasher! Any one here have best amount for front load HE washer? Thank u!!!

Forgot to say I'm using TSP and so far only tried it in the dishwasher (it was amazing difference!). My front load washing machine is 2 years old. It is new kind that uses much less water. I read about leaving door open when not using and did that from beginning. I never have that bad smell. But i STILL always have to clean out the rubber areas & window because leftover stuff builds up. I hate it. I use only liquid HE - arm and hammer plus OxyClean. Sorry for long post. Any tips? Thank you every one!

Use powder. Supposed to be better for machine and no smell and mold.

Thank you!! Any idea how much to use? Also the manufacturers instructions say to only to use HE liquid. I also seem to get the sudsing error message too often even though I'm using the specified HE detergent & have cut down amount!) Finally one other question -- How should I add the TSP to the load? Should I just put the TSP powder in the tub , then add clothes? Or should I try to dissolve it and pour it into the detergent reservoir along with detergent? Thanks again!

I am confused. I use TSP for cleaning really, really bad stains and dirt of tile or outdoor furniture. It is both corrosive and toxic and I imagine it would destroy both your laundry and your machine over time. Am I missing something? On the other hand I know you can use STTP and it will help remove excess detergent and built up yuck in laundry, especially in hard water.

TSP (TriSodium Phosphate) is not the proper additive for laundry. STPP (Sodium TriPolyPhosphate) is it.

Yes, thank you dadoes that is what I thought. And yes STPP not STTP.