I came here to see if this had been posted and commented on. Interesting stuff, though I need to watch it again. I wonder if the extra rinse button will get more use now.

My front loader only does two rinses so I add two additional rinses and a final rinse with fabric softener for a total of five rinses.

I always do the optional additional rinse. Did they research what an optimal load of laundry is? I suspect many people overload their washing machine and rinsing isn't effective.

I'm probably guilty on the overloading. twebbz, what kind of machine do you have that allows you to add a specified number of rinses?

So from this, we see the importance of rinses and having enough water in the rinses to help remove detergent along with the soil. So what is wrong with machines that will only do one rinse and an extra rinse means you get two? Extra rinse should mean you get three rinses and 2 rinses should be the default. Spray rinses? Are they any good?

I have a compact GE 2.6 cu.ft. front loader. I have to select the extra rinse at the start which gives me three. Then I do a manual "rinse & spin" and a final manual "rinse & spin" with fabric softener. I always use the highest spin speed. This machine uses very little water. A trick I use as a manual rinse for towels is the "delicate" wash cycle. Water fills a quarter way up the door window giving a deep rinse. I let it fill and it swishes around for a few minutes then I hit pause to drain then I switch the machine to "drain & spin". Another trick is to add water quickly but carefully through the detergent drawer immediately after the rinse fill stops.

I always use Extra Rinse for my FL since they use very little water for the rinses. I never felt that the clothes were really fresh without the extra rinse.

I usually use the "extra rinse" too, but I haven't checked how many the regular cycle has built in. I thought maybe there were machines (Little Giant?) where you could dial in how many rinses you want. I've run the rinse and spin cycle too, and if I've made an especially gross mistake with detergent and there are lots of suds, I've run the machine's "Super Quick 20 min" cycle which fills pretty high and has rinses too.

Glad to see science backing up practical experience LOL.