Hi there!! Cheers :)

I had similar experiences with Bold gels and I like German Ariel liquids, but do not like British or German or Swedish Ariel powders. I felt the left many things musty!

Glad you are having good results with Persil. Are you on well water, or is the water super hard? This could be causing the graying whites. Can you try STPP/Phosphates?

ANDI!!!!!! Great to see you sweety and hope that new man is treating you like a Princess.

As for the whites...I agree with Larsi...STPP...also make sure the washer is rinsing well as carbonate residue will cause dingy whites.

Larsi, according to the water website I have moderately hard water.

I'll order some stpp when I'm back in the states. I hope that helps!

Mama, don't worry! I'm very happy and have a great husband... just ask Larsi... he's forced to see all my sappy lovey posts on Facebook

Nice to see you again!

Have you tried a prewash or upping the amount of detergent or a water softening powder?

Persil perls are excellent for whites. If you could get those, I'm sure they would do the trick. Far better than Tide.

Andi, regarding the small bathroom and mold, you might try a Germ Guardian. I recently bought one for my bathroom, mostly for cat litter odors, but UV light does help, some say, with keeping mold down. Normally, once established, I'd say not. But in that small space, it might help. If nothing else, it moves the air around nicely, and is super small. Reviews at Amazon are excellent.

I don't know if they sell it in the UK, but I find Out White Brite very helpful for dingy whites. I have very hard water in my house, and this works better than bleach or anything else I have tried.

Whirlpool... I've not tried a pre-wash as my machine doesnt have that particular cycle. The closest I could get would be the quickwash cycle and it's an hour long. I haven't tried any water softeners yet, but thats definitely on my list of things to get! I did try increasing the amount of detergent... The machine is 6-7kg.. I did a load of whites and selected "mini-load" because it was only 2 white hand towels, 2 pillowcases and some socks... very tiny load. I usually add 1-2 tablespoons of Ariel/Persil powder (way below the amount recommended on the packaging) and it's pretty sudsy even then. I usually have to add 2 extra rinses for 4 total. This time, I added 3 Tbsp on a 70 degree cycle and the suds were ridiculous. I ran a total of 6 rinses. I will take a pic of my final rinses to post because there seems to be quite a bit of suds left on the surface but the water is crystal clear.

rococo, are you referring to American Persil or German?

Thanks Lizzie, I'll look in to it!

Hisown, I'll check out what is available the next time Im in the store!

Well, if you get that many suds, the detergent is softening the water sufficiently, I would guess.

The thing with European (powdered) water softeners is that they are usually either based on zeolites or citric acid. Zeolites are environmentally friendly but - you can probably imagine - don't work as well as phosphates. They bind hard water minerals to them like little sponges, but they aren't water soluble and need to be thoroughly rinsed from the clothes to avoid scratchy laundry. With you doing four rinses that shouldn't be a problem, though. Citric acid doesn't have that problem, however, but I find it slightly counterintuitive to add an acid to the laundry detergent.

I just had this idea... Have you asked your neighbors how they do their laundry? That is if they have really white whites, of course.

Andi....the whites are dingy..not yellow ??

Dingy whites as has been discussed before are caused from soils...either not enough detergent is being used or rinsing is poor...soils are for some reason redepositing onto clothing. You need the help of STPP...I'd order it stat...than run a long hot wash using a generous amount of stpp..no detergents or boosters. Those whites need stripped. Let me know if you get your hands on some stpp..can you order it from Europe??

Hi , nice to hear from you, sorry for your troubles with your laundry.

What machine do you have, post a picture. Never seen an EU washer without prewash, but some restrict you to serten programs.

I use a zeolith based watersoftner and dose detergent as for soft water. Always get whites white and I got so e iron in my water as well. I like persil from unilever as a good detergent, never used persil from henkel.

Whirpool, Im going to wash another stinky workout clothes load today so I'll take some pics and see what you all think. Maybe they're agitation bubbles and not suds? Sigh. We don't have any neighbors at the moment but I did ask my mother-in-law and both sisters-in-law how they wash and my MIL washes with non-bio generic liquid now on 50. One of my SIL uses excel gel on 30 and she doesnt separate anything and it shows. My other SIL uses Persil powder on 60 and uses the recommended amount... SIL 1 has terrible looking whites. SIL2 has nice whites but they all also have a different water source, they all live in the southern part of the island and have soft water.

Mama, yes they are grossly dingy :-( I'll look in to the STPP in a bit. I used to order it from the chemistry store, not sure if they ship intl. or not.

Linus, I've got the Hotpoint Aquarius. I'll post a pic as soon as I get home. When you say "EU" are you referring to the European Union? If so, don't know that it really matters of course, but Guernsey is not part of the EU or the UK. Surely that doesn't matter in regards to a washing machine I would assume haha. I used Persil Megaperls a few years back and hated it. The smell was bad and it didn't clean well at all. Im really liking everything about the Unilever Persil though!

Ok dingy...dingy whites are caused from soils remaining in the fibers, meaning the soils redeposited onto the clothes instead of being held in suspension...this can be problematic with hard water, cold or cool washing, not enough detergent and or poor rinsing, and washing mixed loads (colors and whites together) I know you don't do this......if its caused from poor rinsing this can pose a problem. Generally rinsing is done in cold water, yet cold water constricts fibers trapping detergent and redeposited soils into the fibers leaving you with dingy whites. Do your stores sell any sort of water softeners? Here we can buy calgon..not great and sure not stpp but better than nothing....I'd try one....than wash a load of clean but dingy whites with the water softener nothing else....use hot water..watch for suds. Can you do warm water rinsing? Or reset machine to quick wash warm or hot water?

Another thing....if your whites are heavily soiled..enough soils that it turns the wash water dirty looking..than always do a quick prewash or the heavy soil laden water is going to be trapped in the fibers= the dreaded dingy.

Give us the modelnumber then we can find out how your machine works.

Hello guys, sorry it took so long for me to get back to you. This past weekend and week was nothing but "baby mama drama" and it's finally started to die down, ugh.

Heres some pics of the model number and all of the cycles available

Here is a video of the 7th rinse from a med. load of darks with 2 Tbs of Bold gel. It looks so sudsy but the water is clear. Agitation bubbles or definitely detergent?

Wow, that is a nice amount of water in there! It looks like detergent bubbles to me but don't think its bad enough to warrant additional rinses.

Yep detergent suds.

What cycle is that? Nice water level looks like one of my cycles.

Aaaaaargh!

Mama, it's the rinse cycle. I like this little machine, it doesn't skimp on the water! I ran it through 4 more rinses and they all looked exactly like the one in the video. It's driving me nuts! I thought maybe I should do a few loads without soap if there is that much built up but when I do, there isn't a single bubble to be seen! When the rinse cycle comes around, bubbles bubbles bubbles...

Hm, I indeed can't find anything about prewash on this machine. Weird. I'm using mobile data right now so I cannot download the manual. Does it have a prewash dispenser?

Actually, there's a video of this washer on YouTube on Roger's channel Ibaisaic. He doesn't go in-depth about it as it's only in a holiday home... but y'all can see it in action.

https://youtu.be/qSEGjd0HGBg

Whirlpool, no it doesn't have a pre-wash dispenser.. just detergent and FS.

The little compartment on the top left... the manual says to never put detergent in it.

You said you have dingy whites. Mine turn a bit different color over time due to iron in my water, I know that and it is such a slight tint so I dont really bother but use some bleach one in a while on serten itoms. As you told us about water hardness you must be on municipal water and not n well water is that right.?

As you said others have the same problem there might be other stuff in the water like iron that make your whites dingy. Call your watercompany and check.

I went trough some of the hotpoint model list on their website and alot of them do not have prewash, so strange. Some love them some dont but I dont think they are very durable longtime.

Linus, checked and iron isn't a problem here.. yes the water here is municipal.

I really like the machine itself. I love being able to choose specific temps but just dumbed down hot, warm and cold. I've just accepted defeat and won't be wearing anything white while Im here. Id rather not wear anything white than wear dingy whites. :-(