Save Energy & Money By Washing In COLD With Tide Coldwater

It’s a no-brainier, using cold water to wash your laundry saves energy and money. In fact, according to TLC, about 90% of the energy needed to wash a load of laundry is used for heating the water – yikes! So washing in cold water can dramatically reduce your carbon footprint. But does it get your clothes as clean?

In my laundry world, I already wash 70% of my loads in cold water (not cool, cold). Why? Because it helps preserve colors, limits shrinkage and, of course, the energy savings. But for my whites, sheets and towels – HOT please. It seems logical to me that hot water is necessary to really get things super clean, right?

Recently, I was introduced to Tide Coldwater. (I am not sure why I never noticed this option before, probably because I am such a creature of habit and only see what I am looking for.) So I did a little research into what makes Tide Coldwater special. Without getting into the scientific stuff, here’s what I learned…

While most detergents need hot (or warm) water to effectively dissolve (as in powder) or disperse (as in liquids) effectively, Tide Coldwater is formulated to dissolve/disperse in cold water. In fact, it has different enzymes and chemicals to compensate for the lack of heat. Ummm… Interesting…

In my research, I found an interesting article NYTimes dissucssing Tide Coldwater. This part intrigued me the most…

In trying to create Tide Coldwater, Procter’s scientists were confronted with a problem: hot water does help get clothes cleaner. In fact, thermal energy is one of three secrets to cleaning clothes, along with mechanical energy and chemicals.

“When you reduce one, you have to do better in the others,” said James Danzinger, a senior scientist who works on detergents for Procter & Gamble.

So the company set its scientists loose to find new chemicals to compensate, and what they came up with was a detergent, Tide Coldwater, with different enzymes and surfactants that work better in cold water.

So mom was right, with normal detergent I do need hot water for the cleanest clean. But what mom didn’t know, when she imparted all of her laundry secrets upon me, was that new formulas would allow cold water to also be effective.

I still plan to use the “Allergen” cycle on my washing machine (with hot, hot water) for sheets and towels to effectively kill those pesky dust mites my family is so highly allergic too. (Because that is one thing only heat can really do.) But according to my research, my whites shall soon find themselves a nice cold bath – with Tide Coldwater, of course.

NOTE – Tide Coldwater is available in regular and HE. It is also available in Free and Free HE. (Yeay for allergy suffers!)

Disclosure – I was provided a product sample and promotional item by SheSpeaks to facilitate this review, however, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Free Full-size Bottle of Tide Stain Release Spray

Head over to Tide’s Facebook page on Thursday at 3pm EST to snag a free full-size bottle of Tide Stain Release spray. The freebie is limited to the first 5,000 to sign-up. I’ll post a reminder before the freebie goes live.

Details can be found on their Facebook wall here.

P&G $100 Coupon Book

We use a lot of P&G products in our house, so I love the $100 Coupon Book from P&G. I got one last year, and it was really easy – Moms, think Pampers diapers! The coupon book is available again to those who spend $50 on P&G products between Feb 1 and April 15, 2010. Download your savings form here.

Wondering what other P&G products you use:

• Tide
• Downy
• Cascade
• Pampers
• Olay
• Puffs
• Bounty
• Charmin
• and more!