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Whilst working from home yesterday I spent most of the day removing half of South Wales’s finest mud, grit and sand from the clothes, pads and shoes I wore at the weekend. Some of the gear has Nikwax TX Direct water repellent stuff so you can’t use normal detergent unless you want to reproof.
The official choice is Nikwax Tech Wash which is bloody expensive. I’ve seen Waitrose do a similar liquid soap for waterproof clothing for half the price.
But my latest discovery is Violet’s Laundry Liquid which Mrs Guru started buying in the last year or so for general laundry use. A 5 litre bottle costs £30 but claims to do over 100 washes and all it’s made of is water, natural soap (made from seaweed), sodium carbonate and sodium sesquicarbonate (which google tells me are water softeners) and xanthum gum (a thickening agent).
It seems to work. Anyone else tried it?
Hose for the worst of the mud, then in the machine at 40deg for 30 minutes, with a glug of Halo, does the trick for me mate.
Not tried that, but you can get 5 litres of Nikwax Tech Wash for £24.50 on Amazon. Much more cost effective than buying the smaller bottles.
"Not tried that, but you can get 5 litres of Nikwax Tech Wash for £24.50 on Amazon. Much more cost effective than buying the smaller bottles."
That's good to know. With Tech Wash you're told to use 150ml per wash (and only two items at a time - which I ignore) whilst this Violet's Ultra Concentrated Laundry Liquid is 40ml per wash with a 7kg load, so it should work out far cheaper.
Hose the worst off in the garden, anything waterproof goes in on a rinse only cycle, everything else goes in on a normal 30deg with non bio liquid. We do run the machine through on a hot wash with nothing in before the waterproofs go in.
This obviously assumes nothing is being reproofed etc.
i use wilkos liquid soap.
2 quid a bottle, lasts ages.
I handwash with Lux soap flakes, you can use a machine though. 1 or 2 tablespoons dissolved in warm water directly into the drum normally works.
I buy nikwax tech wash when it's on 2-4-1 at blacks, which is usually once a year or so...
Same as nobeer but sub halo for tesco liquid.
Cycle enthusiasts love to overthink everything, eh?
"Cycle enthusiasts love to overthink everything, eh?"
I know I do, it's my greatest weakness - and my greatest strength!
A fair bit of my kit is Paramo / Nikwax Analogy stuff, which needs to be reasonably clean (not on the outside but like deep in the fabric) to remain waterproof. The ecomentalist in me likes that it doesn't deposit particularly nasty chemicals across the countryside like most waterproofs and that it lasts for ages compared to membrane/coated waterproofs. But just rinsing will eventually lead to an unexpectedly wet experience on a ride.
Saying that, it was pretty filthy wet at the weekend and all I wore was a windproof over a base layer for most of it, if you're active and thus warm who cares if you're wet?
Sounds expensive at 30 quid, but Halo works out at 20 quid for 5L, so not that bad really.
#shitsuperpowers
Stick together boys and we can fight anything
"Sounds expensive at 30 quid, but Halo works out at 20 quid for 5L, so not that bad really."
That Halo stuff looks good too - I see it's similarly concentrated so the price comparison is fair. The Nikwax stuff is very dilute so you have to use loads which makes it even pricier and more annoying to store.
+1 on the Halo - 30 min wash at 30 degrees, works a treat here.
Other than looking after some of the treated/membrane stuff, all my sports stuff just gets chucked in the normal 30C wash and comes out fine. Some of you lot must be mingin'
I have a ride top that seems to suffer the same BO-ey pong that Helly Hansen base layers were famous for, Halo sorts it, for a bit anyway!. 40 seems to clean a bit better than 30 in my machine, I can stick my biking gear in at 30, then again at 40 and the water is still manky in the 40 wash!.
WOS mud Colin, none of yer Grrrrrrravel nonsense doon here ol yin! 🙂
I'd be a bit careful with Halo on anything treated with DWR (i.e. Paramo or other waterproofs like GoreTex etc). It'll be great for your base layery type things.
The violet laundry stuff sounds like it should be OK on stuff with DWR on it.
I should say BTW that I have recently started working at Nikwax so obviously I'd say Nikwax will ultimately give you best results.
Feel free to DM me if you want to know anything more specific and I promise I will give you a balanced answer. Just don't want you to knacker your kit!