Welcome to the 7% of Aussies who are not connected to reticulated sewage systems.
It would be interesting, and informative if Choice could more fully assess those products claiming septic or grey water safe. Just how that might be done, in the absence of specific tests or standards? I rely on the Aussie bush standard for surface crust and sniff testing. We do put a lot of trust in the handful of products prepared to support our needs!
Not sure there is any value in testing any brand not backing the suitability of their products. They likely know how it is.
Clothes washing detergents have anti-foaming (or defoamer) agents as an ingredient. The video in the article is possibly a set up using a dish washing detergent or other detergent which produces a lot of foam.
My first experience with any antifoaming agent was doing work experience at a breweries testing lab. They used antifoaming agents so that they could reducing foam product when testing products.
IâVe used Biozet for decades but lately have also been using âEvercleanerâ washing machine sheets. Iâm also looking at other options like Lucent Globe and another the name of which I forget. The Evercleaner sheets work well.
I have moved your post into this already existing topic about laundry detergents including the 2025 review (the 2024 link above will take users to the 2025 reviews).
There is at least one reason that it may not have made the test, that is if the formula is being changed (which does happen frequently enough). Here on the Community we are not aware of the reasons that some are left out but often it appears to be the formula changing.
Your post has been moved into this already existing topic about the laundry detergents reviews.
The post just above this one gives at least one possible reason that Dynamo was not reviewed. There has been several posts over the years from CHOICE staff as to why some detergents do not get tested in new test rounds. As explained above most often it has been around formula changes and so at the time of the test there is no surety that the one being tested will be the new product. There are other reasons and this following link from further above gives some reasons why it may not have been tested this round.
Thank you for your feedback, it always helps to get other consumers feedback about the tests.
Ok thanks. I guess from that perspective itâs a biased assessment as they are not including all products. For example Dynamo could have been better than the top rated or it may have been somewhere down the list. People need to consider the results and recommendations carefully before making purchase decisions.
If Choice tested a product that you could not buy, or you could buy with the âsame branding and labelâ but it was different from that tested and thus performed differently, would you call that bias or tending toward accuracy?
As a far fetched analogy cars are updated annually, sometimes just a bit and other times quite dramatically. In either case there is identification such as their MY or series. Products such as detergents (and others) get reformulated without notice or identification.
If Choice becomes aware of a reformulation it is not going to be easy to pick the new one from the old one on the shelves any more than a consumer would be able to discern the different products beyond some glib statement such as ânew and improvedâ - whatever that means. Would it make sense to test the old one that is being phased out of the marketplace?
@BrendanMays, this line of questioning about âwhy wasnât it testedâ recurs enough so Choice might consider adding specific mention to the common products that are not tested including a reason to assuage those unhappy with the omissions?
In the case of where a product was being reformulated. Old formula product was still being sold on the shelves amongst the new formula. Because it isnât clear which packet is new or not, CHOICE had purchased the old product off the shelf and gave it a rating. Someone buys the new product based on the rating of the old product (thinking it is the new productâs test result) and it performs worse than the old formula, that would be a loss of trust in the CHOICE testing.
Rather than using what might be old product, CHOICE chooses to exclude that product from the test until the next round. This is so that the result is trusted. CHOICE buys off the shelf just like a consumer does, they donât have a special relationship with the manufacturers to get the newest formulations.
If a consumer prefers the Dynamo brand or a particular variant of their detergents and a consumer is satisfied with it and see no reason to change, CHOICE testing could have very little bearing on their buying decisions. If instead a consumer only buys one of the recommended products, and a change has occurred to move that product into or out of recommended, it would matter to ensure the correct product was tested and not an old formulation.
