Yes our local piggly wiggly has the same bags with the same sticker! It’s only 1.00 per bag too. I bought one and had some time on my hands and translated it. It’s for handwashing (if my translation skills are any good) and not for washers.

Heather Larsi bought Vietnamese Tide a few years ago. The ingredient list included Sodium Tripolyphosphate. It was super good stuff. I suspect this is made by P&G for the simple reason I can't imagine anyone risking selling Bootleg or fake stuff in a store. On the streets maybe but not a store. P&G would not show mercy.

Its for hand washing because many people from that end of the world still do not have electricity so no washers. I imagine its sudsy which is still in our modern day a way some people judge a detergents worth. Try some as a soak in a sink.

As for flavoring I'm sure you know it means scent. Lol.

If you try it let us know what you think.

Thank you for the info about hand washing. Hand washing is something I rarely do. I may buy the tiny bag at a discount store, not the supermarket. The supermarket is a chain store and not the cheapest, just the only one in walking distance to me.

I never thought to translate with Google. The flavoring made me laugh. I always enjoy when I see any made for the public writing that has glaring translation issues. It is understandable from developing countries, but sometimes it is from companies or countries that should know better. I have saved a few translations and used them with my teachers to remind them not to write to parents and use Google or other internet translation. Certain words have quite a different, sometimes foul or insulting meaning from what the computer translation offers.

I was hoping it had phosphates but looks like it has been removed from this version. Haven’t seen that in a few years.

Larisa I can find Ariel with phosphates in small hispanic grocery or discount stores. The Ariel does not say it has phosphates anymore, but it is different from the US version. For me that is mostly Central or South American stores. While we have plenty of Mexican and Caribbean stores they don't seem to carry the same detergents.

Yep the Mexican Ariel, only the ones sold in a true Mexican store still has phosphates. Its not listed in the ingredients anymore but its there. I've been trying to find a brick and mortar store that sells phosphate testers for aquariums, pools ect. No one sells it but Petsmart will test for phosphates for one dollar. I have been known to mix a spoon of Ariel in water and have it tested...LOL. Petsmart doesn't care what their testing as long as the one dollar is paid. Lol. After testing I was given a set of numbers that s how's how high the phosphate level was and I was told the level was extremely high. Haha

Momma I found a pack of test strips on amazon (pack of 20) to test for phosphate for 5.50 with free prime shipping. Also went to my local Mexican store and got some Ariel. Gonna test it as soon as they get here. The package don’t say phosphates but it sure does clean better.

Hoping this will be better than buying STPP in bulk as the last two I got were rock hard and seller didn’t want to resend better stock.

Larisa, Thank You. I suppose I'll order off Amazon. Lol.

We must be weird....testing laundry detergent for phosphates and hoping it tests positive. Lol.

As for your Mexican Ariel have you ever had the Ariel from Walmart and other stores? If you have you'll notice the difference in the colors of both. The scents are close but not quite the same. I'm really curious as to the results of your testing with the Mexican Ariel and hope you share your results.

I have a big nag of ACE i found in a Mexican store and im curious to test it. So i will be ordering the test strips. Lol

Thanks Larisa

Oh I have ace detergent at home so will test that too. Got it on amazon for 15.00 for a large box. Was cheaper than tide at the time. It’s from Brazil or so the box says. I’ll have the strips tomorrow’s or Saturday and of course will share results.

Mama I would be happy to send you some of these strips when they get here. Doubt I’ll need 20 of them. As soon as I get them I can pop some in the mail and photocopy the results page that comes with it. If so let me know be happy to send some your way.

Yes please post the test results of the mexican Ariel...are you talking about the Ariel with Downy?

I just purchased some STPP from Dafna off Ebay. I hope the supply is good.

Larisa, I tried to message you my address but you don't have messages turned on. Yes I would love a couple test strips and Thank You very much.

Mama let me try and fix that. Not sure how that’s turned off.

Wow, I guess I should have read this entire post. I found 23 bags of the Vietnamese Tide in a local mexican store and bought every one of them thinking it has phosphates. It has the import sticker, but has the same ingredients that is listed above. $48 in laundry detergent with no phosphates??? I also bought a couple of bags of Ace that I found because they were only $1 each.

This vietnamese Tide smells really good. When I washed my hands, they were slippery as all get out, so I have to wonder. If it is not phosphate laden, why the import sticker?

There were tons of the Mexican Ariel as well, but they didn't have the sticker on them and were a lot more expensive because they were three times the size, so I passed on them.

Larisa, were you going to test the Tide for phophates with your test strips?

I didn’t plan on testing tide as it don’t have phosphates in it since it was made here. Ace detergent I just tested (which is tide in Brazil) and it does have phosphates in it. Mexican Ariel did test with phosphates in them as well. This Vietnamese tide did not have phosphates in it.

Thank you Larisa for the results.

Oh, so disappointed. I just bought all those Vietnamese Tides. Oh well, I have 5 lbs of STTP, I guess I know where some of it is going.

So, the Mexican Ariel that you tested, was it the one with Downy?

Larisa Thank You sweety for posting your results. I did have my new bags of Ariel the bigger bags from Mexican store 7.50 each...they tested positive for phosphates. ..lots of phosphates. My big bag of Ace from the Mexican store also tested positive. My bag and box of Ace that I found a good while ago probably 3 years ago at Ollies discount store tested Negative....BUT. a few years ago Walmart had big bags of Ariel USA the powder was white and smelled exactly like the older Tide powder (Larsis favorite) one bag said Ariel USA it tested negative but the other from Walmart that did not say USA tested positive. This didn't surprise me as once upon a time maybe 4 or so years ago Walmart got caught selling the white Ariel with phosphates. None of this type the white powdered Ariel is around now and the White powder that said Ariel USA also disappeared when the new bags of bluish powdered Ariel hit Walmart.

Jody none of my new Ariel bags that tested positive had any import stickers. This has always confused me as why some bags have import stickers and some don't.

LOL

Mama I believe I sent you a message :) I have some strips ready to be mailed off to you. Made a good color copy of the results page too.

I just ordered some test strips from Amazon. I am extremely curious about my detergent now. I have tons of Ariel and if it doesn't contain phosphates, I am going to be PISSED!!!!!

I also just used the Vietnamese Tide on a load of dirty white wash cloths that were used to clean the window sills...not impressed. I used it by itself in hot water, no bleach and heavy load. They were not sparkling clean and white; dirt streaks all over the cloths.

Larisa. I messaged you back.

Got it mama :) will get those out tomorrow!

Larisa, Thank You much sweety. I'm excited. I'll let you know when it arrives. (((HUGS)))

hmorton, let us know what you think of the vietnamese Tide. I wasn't really impressed with it, and it sounds like you have to use it on whites only, which really limits what we can do with it.

I did have better results when I added the stpp and bleach to the same load with the Tide. Some more of the dirt marks came out of the bath cloths and they were whiter, but I expected that.

I just don't think this is going to be a very good detergent as a stand alone. Shame..I have 23 bags to use up.

If you are brave and use it on dark colors, let me know about any fading please.

Jody, I didn't buy the Vietnamese Tide. I wanted to hear what people here thought first.

I use Grab Green Tabs or Mexican Ariel on whites and lights. I am very happy with both of those. Right now I am using Woolite Darks on black and very dark clothes and am just using it up. I don't find it does a good job. I need to buy something for bright colors and a better darks detergent.

I have a Polish supermarket near me that sell European Purwol and Ariel but it is expensive. I hate to order via the internet Cheer powder since I have never tried it, but I can't find it anywhere near me. You would think in NYC you could find reasonably priced powdered detergent.

Just signed up so I could comment on here. I live in an epicenter for foreign laundry detergents, southern california, and thought I would join the discussion about phosphates. Normally I had been using Roma but that ran out, and Foca wasn't as good as it used to be so I got rid of it.

Larisa: Hello! I did a reagent test on ariel and ace and can confirm the presence of phosphates. These brands are just what I picked up in the last couple of days to do more tests because like I said, I ran out of my usual detergent and needed something new. I used ace today at the laundromat, everything came out amazing but what's also important is that I noticed the american version of fabric softeners (more specifically, downy) are inferior to their mexican counterparts. The bottle in the picture is so much better and costs only $1.30 for a large size.

I used the same brand that you did for testing, Aquachek, and I think the method to testing is different than with water: I scooped about 1/2 teaspoon into the vial, put some water in it, shook it once, then dropped in the reagent and after about 20 seconds it turns blue on top. Is this how you did it? It took some trial and error before I figured it out and the 25 packets didn't last long.

I also did tests on Surf (made in thailand), Omo (vietnam, unilever), Ariel (vietnam, has a nice scent) and I think they all came back positive for phosphate. But I ordered another batch of testing supplies to be sure. The only one from mexico that came back negative was Persil. Haven't tested Lirio or Pinol yet, Lirio says no phosphates and Pinol doesn't say anything. There's a bag of Tide from...I think china? It says no phosphates but that doesn't necessarily mean it's true. I'm still waiting on more supplies before I know more.

1

Wish I could find Ace Limon again somewhere ...

Many fragrances are also listed as flavorings because the ingredients in them are safe for human consumption.

Back again with an update. The pillow-packs from the original test are very inaccurate, a lot of false positives because if the soap itself is blue or purple, it will return a positive result. I ordered the test that comes in two bottles and a test vial, more expensive but way easier to use, more accurate, and the kit is enough for 150 tests.

Ariel (mexico) and Ace both tested negative, which is a shame because I have a lot of it. In contrast, Ariel (vietnam) tested very high for phosphates, the average test takes about 2 minutes but it shows blue within 30 seconds, and the powder is white. But the price is 330g for $1, compare to 400-500g on average from everyone else.

Persil also tested high, Omo and Surf (both from vietnam) also tested positive. Lirio, Pinol, and Tide (from china) were all negative. The tests here are Omo (top) and Ariel mexico (bottom).

Dadoes: Omo and Surf (in the picture) are both lemon/lime scented, very similar to each other and made in the same factory. But it's more of an industrial lemon lime, like something you would expect in a hospital or a prison. Very strong. And coincidentally, the label for Surf mentions something about hospitals on the label.

Also forgot, Persil (mexico) says it's biodegradable and has no phosphates, but it's loaded with them. Ariel (and anything P&G, really) no longer uses phosphates. It's disappointing because I used Ariel for a very long time but had a large stockpile of Roma that ran out a while back and I had to buy more Ariel. My clothes weren't getting completely clean like they should have and I didn't make the connection until much later. The hispanic bag of Ariel says biodegradable and I assume that's what they mean by it. Oh well, there's always other brands out there.

I am wondering if the Persil says it contains Phosphonates which I don't think are quite the same as Phosphates.

Jerrod here’s a good read about the two.

https://www.holchem.co.uk/media-centre/phosphorus-phosphate-and-phosphonate/

Thanks Chris for testing these detergents and sharing your results.

We use Mexican Ariel for grungy and funky laundry loads. It works great for that. Certain family members wash their laundry only with Mex Ariel as it works best for them. I guess I'll have to move on along though with your test results showing no more phosphates in Mex Ariel. I put up with the scent for the good cleaning it delivers. Without the phosphates in there, it's just a middle tier detergent and not worth the scent trade-off for us and our needs. Darn it. I'm down to my last two bags of old stock Mexican Ariel.

We don't have access to Vietnamese laundry powders here, or I'd give those a try.

@SEA SEA P&G made good on their word to remove phosphates from most of their products. You can find the mexican ariel at walmart now, it explicitly states phosphate free but there's no difference between that one and one you would find at a mexican grocery store (believe me, I checked). The 500g and 1kg bags say "Biodegradable" and I assume that's what they mean by itself. The 5kg sacks don't say it, for some reason. The only P&G product I've found that still uses them is vietnam, but I suppose it's only a matter of time, considering vietnamese tide is also phosphate free.

Speaking of which: Despite popular opinion, tide with downy from vietnam does have instructions for top-loading washers. The problem is their formula is terrible, again due to being phosphate free. I read (probably somewhere else) that they used to include TSP ( tripoly something phosphate) in the list of ingredients and the stuff was amazing, but this was many years ago. As it turns out, nobody uses that product in vietnam, it's all exported here and I assume sold on brand recognition to gain market share.

I did something like five or six loads of laundry the other day with OMO and it came out terrific, real strong and even with 1/2 cup per load the sudsing factor was really good. It reminds me of how ariel used to be. Has some sort of lemon/lime scent, but it's not leftover after using fabric softener in the rinse cycle. I did some digging on the history of OMO, it was founded in the 1940's and is vietnam's #1 product by a landslide. Very few people use ariel and nobody uses tide, it's ignored by just about everyone.

@Jerrod The Persil I used is the one in the picture. Tested extremely high for phosphates, even though it says "Biodegradable, libre de fosfato". I remember the reagent acted very violently and foamed everywhere after adding a sample, turned almost black (dark blue is considered to be off the charts, like in the picture a few replies up).

@Larisa Batchelor Thank you so much for coming back!!! The phosphate testing kit you used was just ok but it gave a lot of false positives because the powder was blue/purple. The real one is by API on ebay for something like $13 and it's good enough for something like 200 tests.

If anybody really wants to order this stuff, there's a site called sunicovn.com that will apparently send it to you. Either ariel, omo or surf will have what you're looking for but you'll probably want to order a test kit to make sure it's real. I think omo and surf are the same thing but don't quote me on it.

The attached picture is why vietnamese tide doesn't work. There's aren't enough sales to make it worth their while:

I sent a couple of emails to sunicovn and rakhoiwholesale and asked what their minimum is, but they have not replied. Fingers crossed they won't require a group buy from myself and 10 other members, the last thing I want is a shipping container dropped on my front lawn.

Where did you find the OMO at? Been dying to try that one lol

@Larisa Batchelor Hello again! The local 99 Cents Only chain stores here in California have an abundance of them. Some of the other dollar stores in the sketchy parts of town also carry it. It's very strong, 1/2 cup per load does the job. Anything more and it suds up and becomes a problem in the final rinse cycle (I use front loaders at the laundromat).

Gosh we only have dollar tree and dollar general around but no 99 cent store. None of these have them though go figure. We did just get a 5 and below and scoured that place for any “new finds” and nothing. Oh well, eventually I will find it :)

I wish I could send you some! But it would be cost prohibitive with shipping (It's only $2 per 800g but would be an extra $7 to ship). I'm still waiting to hear back from those two vietnamese wholesalers. The bag of Surf (400g) in the picture is the same scent as Omo, they're even made in the same factory. What you could do is look around any bodegas and keep searching 5 and below for any mysterious brands and test them. Once in a while, a shipment of Roma and Foca with phosphates will come in and circulate at the usual places. I was using Roma for the longest time, it was terrific.

I will continue to look but none of those I’ve been able to find the 5 years we’ve lived here.

@Larisa Batchelor Just keep looking at every hole in the wall and dollar store you can find, something's bound to turn up. Ironically enough, it's always the nastiest places that have the best stuff. Like I said, I wish I could help your supply problem but I don't know of a practical way to. I'm not holding out any hope to hear from those suppliers, but it would be nice.

As for us, it's a free for all out here. Everything goes on sale at the end of the year. Big buckets of generic oxyclean, suavitel twice the normal size, imported downy, all $1 each and no shortage in sight. Stocking up on that and omo so I have enough for 2020.

Gosh Chris,

Being in a goodies desert here, it makes me smile to see such a stash such as yours. Thanks for sharing with us.

I need more detergent like I need a bullet in my head lol recently moved to a new build house that has a custom laundry room for my four front load washers and dryers and had built in shelf’s And a island full of storage put in and I’ve run out of room due to all my laundry detergent lol my husband says I have a problem. Before moving I had laundry detergent everywhere, underneath beds, storage sheds, closets, everywhere. If I bring anymore home I may be in divorce court lol

@Larisa Batchelor If you know how much laundry detergent you have, you don't have enough! I keep everything in one closet, next to the swiffer. Four personal washers and dryers is impressive, I have to do mine at the end of the block every two weeks. There are laundry facilities here at the apartment complex, but they're HE and the quality is lousy, it takes forever, plus it's expensive. The place down the road uses stainless steel washers, everything from 2-10 loads in one. I can do three loads as fast as I can do ten, they each take 20 minutes from start to finish.

Moving along, I did find this story from five years ago. P&G made a promise to phase out PO43- by the end of 2015: P&G Removing Phosphates by end of 2015

Ariel and Ace were mentioned. Obviously it took a while longer for them to catch up with their mexican counterparts, but what's done is done. I'm still disappointed because at one time, I owned a small car wash and my towels and rags were disgusting, stained with oil and dirt and all sorts of black grime. Only Ariel worked well enough so that not only the stains disappeared but they came out of the washer smelling very strong like detergent.

I have room for one more washer and dryer. I ordered the Miele octoplus from Costco Canada. I’m picking it up next week from the Canada USA boarder from my birthdad :)

I’m going on the roadtrip and will be stopping along the way to look for OMO :)

@Larisa Batchelor I explored a few avenues, but no luck yet. 99 Cents Only does wholesale to the public via a site called Bargainw, but the search came up empty. I tried calling them but got their voicemail, it was early in the morning so I'll check back later. I googled the UPC codes for Omo and Surf, found nothing of interest. If you know somebody who lives near a 99 cents only (Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas) and you see this person, might want to ask them. Not every store will have a supply, most do but some don't.

Ariel Powder from Mexico, still contains Phosphate. At least, the Powder version with a touch of Downy, Original, and RevitaColour. I just had this confirmed scientifically, and have spoken with P&G.

Apparently, there's a big push for "Biodegradable" right now, but that mentioned on the bag is worthless. If you spend more time looking at it, you realize it's referring to its surfactants and enzymes being "biodegradable"... which they've always been.

Not only that, but FOCA, sold in Mexico also says Biodegradable. The version sold there still contains Phosphates, and lots of them. P&G however, has removed Phosphate from Ace Detergent, Ariel in Columbia and Ariel in Vietnam.

It would also appear that the Omo Detergent mentioned a few posts up, by Chris, never had Phosphate to begin with. That product, itself, relies on Polymers and Zeolite. It's also extremely sudsy.

You'll also notice on the packages of Ariel from Columbia, that they have a green leaf or white measuring cup that says "Sin Fosfatos" and "0%"... and the same labeling is on Ace.

The liquid line of Ariel, and Pod line -- are all Phosphate Free, which is to expected.

I'm more curious... to see how this all ends. I wonder how much longer P&G will keep this formula the same. Considering we are in the middle of a pandemic, and the current formula kills bacteria, I can't see them rushing to change it, just yet.

Lastly, The Ariel *mostly* being sold here in the U.S. has a extremely similar bag, but completely different formula. Many of you can't even tell the difference, but the a good indicator, is a bag completely in Spanish. You'll also notice the dramatically different dosing directions. 1 Taza (1 Cup) for the Mexican Version, while the US Verison says 1/3 a Cup.

Hi, Laundry Mich, it is so nice to see you around. Thank you for the information. I haven't seen any Mexican Ariel lately. However, this afternoon I will be near a Central American market and I will take a look. I have seen a lot of Columbian ArieI. I haven't been posting here much for a while. Hope you are staying safe. Maybe we more people will start posting.

@Chris J because of your post I got some of the Vietnamese Omo washing powder since I am in SoCal and have access to 99 cent stores. You were right! It really cleans well. Due to the institutional citrus scent I use this to clean things like hand towels, shower curtains, and bathroom rugs, the powder just blasts the dirt right off them. And you were right about Ariel, I bought the doble poder and the formula has changed, it doesn't clean as well as before.