Yes, Sparky, Gain ("original scent") offends me as well! I'm currently trying some Gain Icy Fresh Fizz he Turbo on Larsi's recommendation. It's very similar to the original in scent but not as cloying so far. The problem is that is smells close enough to the original that it's guilty by association!!

Have you tried any of the Grab Green pods? They are nice, not too loud. Now in the bag they kinda of make you second guess them, but afterward they are nice. I realize I just told you that before ( above) but for scented laundry they are a good choice.

I did grab a bag of the GG Lavender/Vanilla pods but haven't tested them yet. They are rather pricey per load so I'm not so sure I want to fall in love with them! Also, not a huge fan of any laundry detergent pod. Prefer liquids and an occasional powder!

I will never give up Persil! Do love GG pods. I first resisted pods but now they are my preferred. No measuring. No dust. No granules. Do not like liquid as it spills, drips. Pods are a great invention.

My only gripe with pods is dosing. Other than that, I find them nifty. Love the Cascade Platinum pods, but unlike laundry, I only run full loads in the dishwasher.

Gain does have a strong scent, but it has nothing on Persil. The cleaning is great, but when you can still smell the scent a week later on clothes in the closet, I think that is a bit too strong.

I've said it before, but these manufactures should make mini pods. Sometimes one pod isn't enough and 2 is too much. Micro Mini Tide Pod-ettes. Or Persil or ........

Of course us weirdos would be the only buyers...I doubt most people give a hoot about over or under dosing.

Gain original and Gain Icy Fresh Fizz (powders) I really like. If I'm using FS I use Downy Free with it. Very very light and herbally ( stealing Larsi's herbal). And rremember I'm not big on scented laundry. I also love Persil Pro Caps scent and Pearls scent. The worse detergent scent for me is Surf. Even my boxes placed in extra large zip locks and put in a space bag filled the detergent closet with its over powering scent. It made my throat hurt. I donated all of it. Didnt Surf smell nice when it first came out??? I remember a huge box of it in my brothers laundry room I don't remember it reeking to the high heavens.

Surf smelled great back in the 80's/90's. I didn't mind the most recent version in Sparkling Ocean scent.

Sad to hear. Persil is my new favorite. I will say, I still believe that experience changes depending on water hardness/softness and washing machine.

I agree with Cedric. Water makes a huge difference in result. People talk about the strong Persil fragrance which doesn't bother me at all but I need to seal up other products in plastic container and can't even go down the laundry aisle because the smell is way too overwhelming and harsh.

Why it's good there are so many options!

Wow, tried Persil for the first time and that smell! We have our laundry in our garage and I walked in when the washer was going and was overpowered by the smell. I thought it may dissipate after the rinse cycle but sadly, no. My teenage son noticed it as soon as he put on his shirt.

So funny...haven't been to this forum since Oct 2015 when I complained about the scent of Persil SENSITIVE, which I bought assuming it was free of perfume, as are US "sensitive" brands. Oooohhhhhh no...G-d forbid anybody wash their clothes without them smelling like a bottle of 4711 was dumped in the load. Maybe the label should really say 'stop being sensitive' LOL. Another great moment in Teutonic engineering, apparently, like rubber-banded wheels on high speed trains. Anyhow they are probably not exactly the same scents, but quite clearly the odor of Persil was aiming to be more 'sophisticated' than a typical cloying-fake-floral US laundry fragrance. Both horrible, but different kinds of horrible. It's like, would you rather smell like a Tijuana prostitute, or a 2nd arrondissement of Paris prostitute? If the "sensitive" formula stunk to high heaven, I hated to think what the regular version was like.

(and yes, when I first visited Paris in 1993 with my father, who was there for business, we stayed in one of the typical "businessman's hotels"...I think it might have been Le Meridien...he pointed out the a lot of the heavily perfumed women just hanging around were prostitutes...which was legal there until last year)

But I'm sure most people are eating it up. (or sniffing it up - eating any laundry product would definitely be a bad idea) We live in a world where...wow...imagine my shock a couple years ago when I discovered them...there's actually a 1/2 billion dollar market in laundry fragrance BOOSTERS! As though the stench just left by the detergent isn't enough for some people. Utterly laughable. Open a bag of cotton balls and inhale deeply, people. CELLULOSE IS AN ODORLESS POLYMER. All truly clean clothing should be odorless! There is no "odor of fresh laundry". That's "odor of fragrance molecules made in an Indian or Chinese factory from petroleum feedstocks" you're talkin' about. (well, admittedly, some natural fragrances are still competitive and probably end up in some brands, like lavender, if you can stand it which I cannot. Calendula is an example of natural scent I could actually find tolerable for laundry use, but nobody would use such a mild, gentle odor in their product.)

PS - came to read about Tide free and gentle. Consensus seems to be it really is free of perfumes. Forgive my jaundiced opinion on this subject. If you use scented laundry detergent, I will not think you are a sex worker ;-). I am not chemically sensitive in classical sense, but find almost all artificial or synthetic odors to be unpleasant. Lavender is nice if I'm standing next to a big lavender bush on a warm sunny day. It isn't pleasant when I'm trying to sleep and a pillow case reeks of it. And don't get me started on checkout clerks who wear heavily scented hand lotion and get it all over my food.

Sensitive laundry detergent in the US has scent. Free Laundry detergent has no scent.

Persil Sensitive has now changed to Free

Thanks for the clarification mamapinky. Maybe in the past I've bought "Free" for "sensitive skin" and confused the two? I have never bought a laundry detergent before and found it so strong. In fact I seem to recall being at my brother's once and having to use some typical brand like All, non-sensitive version. Even that didn't seem as strong as sensitive Persil. At any rate, apparently I was not the only one aghast over the fragrance of 'stop being sensitive' Persil LOL. If they had to reformulate it so soon after their launch in the US. Ya wonder if someone's head rolled over that mistake.

I'm hearing more and more of young people having eczema. Only anecdotal, of course...I'm not going to try to find out from the CDC if that's actually true. I just remember not knowing anybody with it when I was a kid in the 1980s, and now knowing 4 people under 25 who do have it. I have to wonder if infants and toddlers having their bodies bathing in a host of fragrance chemicals might be related to it developing more often. Even if each individual one of those chemicals got a perfunctory patch test on the back of some poor lab rat, maybe the cocktail is the problem.

It's really a case of people being decoupled from the natural world. Believing that a bunch of synthetic organic fragrances and long-chain carrier molecules saturated into their clothing is a sign of them being "clean". Just a less extreme example than thinking chocolate milk comes from brown cows!

David, your prostitute post had me laughing!

I'm also going to be glad when the rest of my Persil 2in1 is gone. The perfume is so strong and so persistent no matter how much you rinse. Laundry reeks for weeks after it's washed.

I read a review on Persil a couple of years back. It scored highly for cleaning but the review noted that some might be put off by it's "European fragrance". Put me down as one of those.

I'm over Persil. I've decided while I don't hate them I don't really like them either. The boys like the power pac scent but I don't. Miele white and colour are still my main detergents and I don't know why I keep trying new ones lol.

Persil liquid and pods are kaa-kaa.

Stinks to high heaven and doesn't clean even half way decent. Maybe the pearls/powder were great, but those are off the U.S. market....I never once saw them in any store around here.

Kaa-kaa.

I have different results Persil liquid and caps work wonderful for me..stains don't stand a chance. Dosing is important, enough must be used to actually clean the clothing and cold water is a absolute no no but that is universally true with all detergents.

Scent aside I don't understand how some can have such poor results from Persil considering its powerhouse surfactants and enzymes yet have acceptable to great results with a MOL or sometimes BOL detergent. I understand water chem but than a less aggressive detergent is likely not to be much good. All I can figure is it comes down to water temps at times and or cycle choice.

I'm done with Persil. I eagerly jumped onto the US Persil bandwagon. The cleaning was great but couldn't handle the intermittent vomit smell. I've used the Pearls, 2 in 1 and pods.

The only Persil I love is universal powder. The rest (including the US line, esp now that they've done away with the pearls) , are "eh". The pods are ok though they smell like men's cologne. Not that that's a bad thing, but I don't want all my laundry smelling like that. The intense fresh liquid did a great job on my sheets and towels, but left some clothes with the dreaded "sour" (vomit?) scent. So I'm done with it too, until I can find universal powder without paying an arm and leg for it. Which probably won't be anytime soon. So yes, be gone (US) Persil lol

" the intermittent vomit smell."

It's fascinating multiple people refer to this. mamapinky, you seem to understand the chemistry of LD better than most. Seems to me the only thing that could cause that, besides a gross malfunction of the washing machine, would be protease enzymes. I have done experiments in a biochemistry class and proteins, when broken down by enzymes, do have a vomit like smell. (that's why vomit smells like vomit) Excuse me for being rude, but, sheesh, folks, how does that much protein end up on your dirty clothing unless you're in a family of teenaged boys? But I noticed my Tide non-scented has enzymes, too. Why don't people complain about it causing such a smell?

I think it's because of the scent or masking scent they use that doesn't mix well with water chemistry or FS chemistry or bleach chemistry or something to that affect.

"I think it's because of the scent or masking scent they use that doesn't
mix well with water chemistry or FS chemistry or bleach chemistry or
something to that affect."

It would be strange for a fragrance chemical to somehow mutate into a vomit odor. Even in a very far-fetched scenario, when organic compounds do get chlorinated, you end up either a strange ethereal sweetness (chloroform and company) or a purely chemical smell. Vomit odor requires very specific molecular interactions in the nose...starting with proteins.

I have been somewhere on the Gulf coast where the tap water had a sulfurous smell anyhow, but you'd think the person would figure out that was coming from the water. Maybe it can interact with dirty clothing odor to be magnified, and if the masking fragrance doesn't work well, just somehow makes it all worse. Still vomit odor is not the same as rotten eggs smell. Both gross, but different kinds of gross.

I have no degree in chemicals buy my nose knows that clothes washed in Persil have a sour smell (that resembles vomit).

After lots of thoughts and reading over the past two years actually since March 2015 when Persil hit the US shelves...this is what I think. First of all I think it would be more understandable if any of you have smelled old body odors in stored bedding...its a rancid puke scent

Now this new Persil an aggressive detergent finds its way into our laundry room and suddenly people complain of a vomit or dead corpse scent on their textiles...its not the water, its not the washer...whats left???

Old built up body oils deep in the fibers that you did not know existed.. it was hidden deep, and often locked in by fabric softener. Than this new more aggressive detergent starts stripping out the old built up oils, they are breaking down and beginning to release their hold in the fibers. Suddenly you smell them.

I can't remember who it was in the laundry room but they also had the vomit scent from Persil but instead of them packing the Persil away they continued using it and eventually the vomit scent was gone. Who was that?

This is of course JMHO after much reading but its reasonable..

I think that is plausible. Though I suspect the odor would be bodily/grungy, but not quite as bad as fresh vomit. As you said, rancid puke LOL.

I just think Persil sucks...period.

EDIT...except for the discontinued powder.

LOL George XOX

I think David is on to something about the vomit aroma and enzymes. Henkel probably packs a bunch of enzymes in their Persil formulas and that combined with poor rinsability (I found it didn't rinse easily) would cause the vomit aroma...Detergent residue containing enzymes=vomit like smell.

I gave up on Persil last year because all of our clothes smelled like vomit at least to me. I now mostly use Miele powder, love the scent and Tide pods for the boy child.

The first time I washed with the original scent liquid, it smelled a little like canned green beans to me while washing (which I guess have a bit of a pukey smell?), but it never remained on the textiles post-rinse and dry.

EDIT: added "first" - I've used it since with no problems.

I've been ... curious? intrigued? fascinated? ... by the reports of vomit-odor from U.S. Persil. I've not experienced it for all the months that I've been using either the Pearls or the 2-in-1 liquid.

Hey davidrt28- I do have a household of teenage boys! 3 to be exact and one 57 year old teenage boy.

Feel free to ship me all of your Persil detergent. I love them!

Very good deducing and thoughts/comments here. Thanks to everyone for your input. I appreciate the dialog going on.

I just want to clarify for *us* and Persil...it's not a vomit odor. We don't have that. Thank goodness.

It's the over the top fragrance. *That* is what we consider stinking to high heaven.

We like a nice fresh fragrance as much a lot of people do, but this is not a light or fresh fragrance. Maybe we got a bad bottle and a bad box of pods?

Couple the overbearing perfumes with the poor washing action, that's why it's on our kaa-kaa list.

We literally get dirty, smelly laundry with an unnecessarily extremely highly perfumed effect when we have used Persil liquid or pods. It works ok for my laundry, but then again people joke and call me the odor-less woman, so it's not much of a challenge to clean my laundry; stains aside. Personally, I don't have enough clothes to keep my laundry to separate Sea Sea only batches. I tried that and I ran out of clothing. Everybody else here who creates laundry, not so much. They issue a challenge for any detergent.

So, it's like dirty body wearing way too much 1980's perfume. You still smell the stink but now you smell the strong perfume as well.

It's interesting how different water chemistry and I suppose washing machines can have such different effects on the laundry outcome when using Persil.

For us, it's a nope. I'm glad it does work well for some of you. I just wish it *would* work for us. But it doesn't.

Again, great conversation!

First of all I want to say I love Persil, it works great for
me and I love the “Euro smell” (if that’s what we’re calling it). I’ve always
used Downy free and clear as to not add more sent to it with softener and I have
yet to find a better combo. That being said I HAVE encountered the Vomit smell
a few times during two separate events. The first when my wife and I separated and
shared custody with our children (week on / week off). I would occasionally run
across this with clothes that didn’t make it back to my house for a while. Both
of my boys live with me full time now and sure enough it has stopped. Until, Dad got a girlfriend. Occasionally her clothes would end up getting washed at my house and again I ran across this vomit smell. FF a year and we are all living together, I can’t remember the last time I’ve smelt that. It definitely had something to do with some clothes that have not been treated with Persil, in a while or ever before, or maybe
just aren’t very clean. Both my ex and my girlfriend were using top load washers
and who knows what kind of crap detergent. I’ve been using Persil for about 10 years now and these are the only times it has happened. Mind you I was purchasing the
German stuff before we could buy it here in America. Sad to see the Pearls go ;(

I'm almost finished my first bottle of Persil 2n1 10 demensions of clean and ready to buy my second one. I think this is the third version of this formula and it has been really rinsing well, even in the first rinse. The first version didn't do so well but this formula is much improved at least in my water.

This is the first rinse. I can't complain about this.