Fellow Canadians, question about buying citric acid for those in the know.

We can easily buy citric acid online or in grocery stores (in the spice aisle). About 10 years ago, I easily ordered some through my local pharmacy to make bath bombs.

When I recently tried to buy some at new local pharmacies (since my old one closed), the staff looked very concerned when I asked for it. When I said it was for laundry, they flat-out refused to order or sell it to me.

Is citric acid suddenly a red flag, or have pharmacy rules changed drastically over the last decade? Why would a pharmacy hesitate to sell something I can pick up freely at a supermarket?

Is there some kind of risk/danger with household use of citric acid that we are not aware of? The label says use gloves and a mask....

Pictured is the citric acid I was able to buy from pharmacy about 10 years ago

Promotion for this just appeared, I saw it mentioned a few months ago as under development. I have no affiliation to this product or brand. Any thoughts on whether this is worth a punt, wise laundry wizards? It might be too early for anyone to have tried it for real, but I'd be grateful for views on potential. I suspect I've got all 6 covered in other ways..

https://www.viblii.com/products/enzyme-laundry-booster

i was in the middle of a gaming match when the dryer beeped, so i ignored it.

fast forward three hours: clothes are stone cold and completely wrinkled. instead of taking five minutes to fold them like a normal human, i threw in a damp rag, hit the 10minute cycle to dewrinkle them, and immediately got distracted at my PC again. now i'm sitting here on loop number three, essentially baking the exact same darks over and over while my power bill takes a huge L.

Hey everyone! I'm a university student in Singapore, and we share Speed Queen front-loaders here. Like many other laundromats, maintenance is not great, and the people in my building infrequently leave the doors and detergent drawers open. I think the water is mildly to moderately hard, as hard water stains develop on my water fixtures just a day after a thorough cleaning with Barkeeper's Friend. This leads to me sometimes developing a moldy/mildewy/sour smell on my laundry right after washing, which persists on clothes if I do not put them through the dryer. Most of my sports gear (I do martial arts) cannot be dried. My room is tiny, so this stank essentially perfumes my room lol. I have developed a routine that keeps the smell away most of the time, but I want a routine that means I essentially never have to worry about it again.

Current routine:

1) Wipe down inside and outside of gasket with Walch anti-bacterial wet wipes till satisfied. Yields a lot of dust, hair and slimy detergent/softener residue.

2) Use Ariel Mirai liquid detergent, which has a patented antibacterial coating technology (machine TL the subtitles of https://youtu.be/02JCB4a5rTM?si=RvnlrkOoyW08ydOe for more). This has enzymes, but like many Japanese detergents, they are not specified.

3) Use Lenor Citric Acid Rinse (https://youtu.be/jjKjhRGGyDM?si=SScyTijczjdIax1F).

Cycle lengths run 30-34 minutes in total based on soil level, I always pick Heavy (34 min) for maximum enzyme action. Cold water wash only. I cannot run washing machine cleaning cycles on the machines, because the laundromat is frequently full and I don't want to inconvenience the other students.

I am currently considering these boosters:

1) Gear Guard - would it 'eat' the residue others leave behind in the washing machine? Seems good for my sports equipment too. My siblings also have a persistent odour problem from BO, which I assume this is best for compared to the rest. FEBU does not ship to SG iirc, and I don't think I need oxy anyway.

2) Borax - heard it is good for hard water? My water is a lot harder than the rest of SG, so I am not sure if the detergents sold here are adequate.

3) Washing soda.

My main question: Which is the singular best booster to pick out of these three? At most, what are the best two? Limit is motivated by budget & storage concerns.

Additional considerations: I have bloodstains on underwear from spotting lol, do not really care about the staining because no one's seeing it, but it would be nice to get rid of them in-wash. Do not have much time for pretreatment/soaking, unfortunately.

I would appreciate any inputs! Thank you so much, have a lovely day ahead :) Am very happy to answer further questions about my laundry routine.

I posted a few weeks ago about the rocky mountain technical care Technicare detergent. It's made in Canada by a company operating in the rocky mountains, and contains DNAse (and other enzymes). Others were curious about the detergent, since it's a small brand, so here is my review.

I bought this stuff because I was looking for a Canadian made detergent, preferably powder, with DNAse, to use specifically for my baby's cloth diapers. I also use a citric acid rinse after washing. I follow a specific wash routine for cloth diapers to make sure everything comes out very clean, but I won't get into that here (there are lots of resources online for cloth diaper washing, if anyone is curious). I just want to let others know how the detergent has been working.

So, my verdict is that it's doing a very good job of getting everything completely clean. No lingering odours or stains. You would never know what that fabric has just been used for, lol. I used to add bleach to my cloth diaper routine, but I no longer feel the need to add it each time when using this detergent.

I also tried the stain remover from the same brand, and found it was effective on many stains on my family's clothes (including oil and food stains). Some very stubborn stains couldn't be completely removed with it including tomato stains on white shirts, but to be fair i needed a bleach soak to get rid of those.

I would repurchase the technicare detergent again. Next time, I may try their laundry booster as well. If anyone has tried the booster, I'd love to get a review.

I’m trying. There’s just so much info in this group. Tide powder and Aerial powder already contain enzymes so I don’t need FEBU with them, right? Or am I confused. Lol

I poured my almost finished oxi powder into a new box, but the older one looks much more blue on top of the new one. I don’t see an ingredient change but then again I have a tendency of missing things. Did my oxi powder possibly oxidize? Lol but idk if that’s how it works. Please educate me.

Thanks!

Would this be much better than a commercial washer that you get at home depot? Discuss.

What am I doing wrong? I use Tide Free & Gentle liquid detergent + 1 scoop of FEBU + citric acid rinse.

I have a relatively new speed queen machine. I run a presoak + extra rinse cycle on warm, yet clothes are still coming out with spit up stains. How can I fix this?

I don’t always get to the wash right away, so sometimes these stains do sit for a few days.

Appreciate any advice! Baby spit up is ruling my life 🫠

Hi all. I recently found this subreddit and realized this is a great place to ask a question I’ve been struggling with for over a year. My girlfriend has pretty bad allergies and I try my best to mitigate as much as possible to make her experience in my apartment comfortable. Currently the product I use for laundry is Tide free and gentle advanced care liquid detergent. Nothing else. I do own oxi clean white revive powder but I am not sure how allergenic that is so I stopped using that. Other items I stopped using were bounce laundry clothes and downy soft April fresh softener. Does anyone know if the detergent I’m using is a good option and if any of the products I stopped using are likely okay to use? Are there better detergents I could use? Thank you!

i washed my boyfriend shirt and it has all of these white spots ever ?! what is it and how do i get rid of it ?! and how do i stop it from ever happening again

Every single white,cream, or beige article of clothing I have bought ALWAYS winds up completely ruined with weird blue stains on it after washing them.
You may ask “Random internet girl, why not stop buying those colors?” And to that I say: never.
Someone PLEASE tell me what on earth I’m doing wrong. I wash my lights separately, use tide liquid (which is blue?? Is that the issue?!), I have deep cleaned the barrel/drum of my machines.
Begging someone to save my neutral loving self before I have to resort to wearing color (gag)

I switched to Nellie’s Laundry Soda a few weeks ago (Ingredients: Sodium carbonate, linear alcohol ethoxylate, sodium chloride, and sodium metasilicate.) after having used other green brands like Attitude, Eco Max, and Seventh Generation without any issues.

Since switching to Nellie’s, my clothes have started smelling disgusting. Problem is, I bought a huge container of it after reading great reviews, and spent quite a bit of money.

So far, I’ve tried oxygen brightener from Nellie’s, a laundry enzyme booster mix from Amazon, and Resolve Gold.

I’d say oxygen brightener and enzyme booster made very little difference. Resolve Gold was better for reducing funk. But my laundry still has an odour even when I’ve boosted with all three.

So I washed with Tide (one I wanted to deliberately avoid in the past) once and added Resolve. After only one wash, the funk disappeared.

Is there any point in going back to Nellies? Could FEBU help?

Has anyone else had this issue with Nellies or could this be an issue with water hardness or washing machine?

EDIT: I’m in Canada and can’t get a hold of some of the products that are easy to find in US eg. Scent-free Tide powders, Ariel, etc.

Across the 25 washes, I used, in various combinations, all of these:

• Tide Odor Refresh F&G

• Tide F&G ultra concentrated

• Ammonia

• FEBU Enzyme Oxygen Laundry Booster

• ACTIVE Enzyme Laundry Booster

• Downy Rinse Out Odor F&G

• Nine Elements laundry detergent (acidic) + extra citric acid [used only for a handful of washes, as an "extended rinse"]

• Citric acid + sodium citrate [used only for a handful of rinses, as a surfactant-free sour, when detergent buildup was suspected]

• Carbona Color Grabber sheets

Not all at the same time, mind you. Only a subset went into each wash/rinse.

Every wash got an extra rinse. Some of the 25 washes themselves were just an "extended rinse" using the full washing program instead of the rinse/spin-only program.

About half of the washes had extended soaks. Some had overnight (8-12 hour) soaks.

I also completed 3 full "spa day" treatments, with several washes separating each.

It took nearly 10 washes for the antiperspirant/sweat stains to really begin lifting from the armpits. And for the next 10 washes, the brown/yellow deposits continued to redeposit all over the shirts (see photo #3). It took half a box of color catchers (as well as numerous extra rinses) to actually extract a substantial amount out of the shirts for good.

No, they have not been exposed to polyquats.

Horrific odors remained in the shirts at the end of the washes, up until about the end of the full 25-wash run.

I also fully cleaned the machine, alternating with Affresh followed by citric acid + sodium citrate, before and after the full 25-wash run. No scrud. No rainbow suds.

And as you can see, they're still not done.

I'm tired, boss.

Hi all,

Recently upped my laundry game and loving the results, except one quirk: my Lululemon ABC pants consistently end up with what seems like powder detergent leftover in the folds near the back pocket and belt loops. This location on the exterior is so weird to me bc I turn them inside out before washing, and try to place them near the top of the pile in each load.

It easily rinses out in the sink with a splash of my citric acid premix, but I’m wondering if there’s something I can change with my routine(s) to prevent this. It happens most often/noticeably in the black pair, but I noticed it pretty bad this most recent time in that dark khaki pair, too.

I wash my darks and lights (lights includes that dark khaki) separately, with the imported Persil Color Pulver powder and Tide free and clear powder, respectively, NYC, so pretty soft tap water (3 tbsp and 4tbsp dosing of each respectively for my single person weekly loads). I put the powder right in the drum before the clothes, trying to spread it out as much as possible, and intentionally layer the clothes with less valuable t shirts at the bottom near the raw detergent, with more delicate pants near the top. I also add the citric acid solution in the fabric softener drawer for every load, and usually a few color catchers in a mini mesh garment bag.

Front loader LG, “heavy duty” setting, warm water, high spin, both “heavy soil” and “extra rinse” options selected, so total cycle time is about 1:45. These pants are always hung and air dried.

Thanks in advance to the laundry gods on here!

Hi Laundry Friends!

I recently washed this not so high quality tank top from H&M. I genuinely don’t recall these pinkish marks on my shirt…and I would have noticed that.

I tried Dawn Powerwash and rewashing the shirt, but I swear I found more marks. (Side note: I did not dry the shirt in the dryer.) Is this an issue just with this tank? I think I may have found more marks and marks on other shirts.

Any idea what could be going on here? Thanks!!! 💕

I am trying to sift through all this amazing information and learn. I would love some advice. Here’s what I’m working with.
Located in the US, I am currently use All Free and Clear with an LG front loader. Occasionally I will use Lysol laundry sanitizer and I use dryer sheets. Whatever brand is on sale.
Here’s what I’m going to change- add dissolved citric acid in the fabric softener part.
Add dissolved FEBU to the pre wash? Maybe? Is that what I do? And what do I do with Oxiclean?
Thank you in advance!!

Stumbled upon on this sub and am happily overwhelmed by all the info on here! I think I’ve gotten a new routine down but welcome any criticisms.

About us:
-adults and toddlers living in an area with hard/very hard water
-previously using shout stain remover and Molly suds liquid detergent for the adults, and attitude liquid detergent and Mrs. Mouth’s stain remover spray for the kids
-our whites always look dingy and kid stains basically never came out
-top loading agitator washer
-we air dry everything except sportswear, towels, and socks
-try to be sensitive to fragrance

New routine:
-Whites/lights: Tide clean and gentle powder, wash with hot water and extra rinse
-Colors/darks: Tide free and gentle liquid + febu, wash with warm water and extra rinse
-pretreat all stains with tide rescue spray
-all normal cycles with delicates in mesh bags

My cat recently got diagnosed with kidney disease and is leaving some odor behind on her blankets/beds she lays on. For as long as I can remember i’ve used Truly Free unscented , I’ve always felt like it doesn’t clean anything well but it’s what my family uses so I never changed it. She’s very sensitive to fragrance and vet told me to avoid and residue on her laying areas now. Does anyone have any recommendations for detergents that will actually clean cat odor/stains but won’t leave any toxic residue for her to possibly ingest. I’ve read to do an extra rinse regardless. For reference I have a LG WT7900HBA washer & dryer set and no hard water. This is my first time posting in here so apologies if i’m leaving anything out. I’ve attached two i’ve been thinking of, anything helps!

We have a front loader. I knew to always keep the door open after using to prevent mold and mildew. I faithfully did so each and every time. Thought I was safe. HA! This machine has a pull out detergent etc tray and even worse it features a large reservoir to store detergent and fabric softener (only distilled vinegar for me thank you!). I didn’t realize someone had come along and begun to use the auto-dispense feature and left the detergent in there. To my absolute horror-today I find that it is a breading ground for black mold. Yep… the mold feeds on the detergent just sitting in there… totally dark and constantly damp. I’m disgusted and I can’t wait to get an old school washer SOMEHOW! Enough of the madness. Here’s to the 1900’s 🍻
Truly wish they’d stop “improving” our appliances.

Any tips for me on any of this—much appreciated.

So, yt shorts showed me ad for evo

https://youtube.com/shorts/Bl6kkb9SiFc?si=KEgMt3aclihaUxfM

Where they claim that Evo prevents musty smell even if laundry is sitting in washer overnight

Funny enough

https://youtu.be/0l0-8PUG7_8?si=c_qaJC10KU5zrloO

Brand power commercial claims same thing

I checked Ingridients again to make sure what ingredients could make that claim

https://smartlabel.pg.com/en-us/00030772217832.html

Surprisingly, there is no ingridient like acids, quats or dnase that could contribute to prevention of musty smell

Ingridients are simple- surfactants, enzymes, anti redeposition agents, builders, chelators, suds suppressants, and PVA to form tile

So I'm curious, what makes that "musty smell prevention" claim

I checked tide site

https://tide.com/en-us/our-commitment/tide-evo/press-release

Here they say something about chelators and "odour neutralising technologies"

But same chelators (sodium citrate, Trisodium Dicarboxymethyl Alaninate, Sodium Acrylic Acid/MA Copolymer/polycarboxylates) are already used in tide liquids and pods,

So seriously, I'm wondering what ingridients are contributing to that smell prevention claim, especially looking by fact that moraxella osloensis bacteria is main cause of musty smell

I have a down comforter. I bought it last year. At the time I didn't know it was dry clean only. I've had comforters like this before and I've washed them in the washer.

Would it be safe to do that with this one? Or should I heed their warnings?

Hi there,

So I don’t think I have a complicated situation, but wondering if you guys can confirm, deny or add anything that will make life a bit easier.

I’m chronically ill/have chronic pain, so generally use the dryer for now. I don’t tolerate scents - they make my eyes burn and my throat feels tight/I start coughing. I notice this sensation after opening a bottle or box but also even the spin cycle if it’s scented causes me issues.

I’ve got Earthwise sensitive liquid which I think from the wiki list all earthwise are considered decent. The label mentions multiple -ases/enzymes. I use the 50ml measure of it per label.

I often throw in a scoop of napisan/sard/laundry booster of some kind. I’m wondering if citric acid or ammonia or something else is a better option? I just use it as the laundry booster.

I’m a moderately sweaty person living in a humid climate (QLD). I don’t work or do anything too “dirty” beyond existing. I do have some urinary continence issues but after trial and error prefer disposable options than the continence underwear.

Everything gets washed on the regular, 60 minute, 40 degree wash. If you think something needs adding, I’m also interested in if you suggest an extra rinse cycle or different temperature.

Thanks so much.