Which Laundry Detergent Brand Wins?
In our test we compared 12 laundry detergent options head to head. Tide came out on top. See the measured results, the runner-up, the budget pick, and a link to the full test video.
Tide
Price shown in test: $15 for 84 oz (64 loads, 23 cents per load)
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Arm & Hammer
Price shown in test: $14 for 1.3 gallons (128 loads, 8 cents per load)
Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Arm & Hammer
Price shown in test: $14 for 1.3 gallons (128 loads, 8 cents per load)
Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
The quick take
The short version of why each pick lands where it does, built straight from the measured results.
“And the Tide liquid laundry detergent came out on top with an average finish or rating of three.”
Best in 3 of 7 measurements, including Graphite/oil stain rank, Mustard stain rank and Gear oil stain rank.
Best in 1 of 7 measurements, including Tomato juice rating.
Best in 1 of 7 measurements, including Tomato juice rating.
The measured results
Every number below is read straight from the test. Products are listed in the order they finished.
Soy sauce stain rank
- 1Tide
tied 5th place (with Molly's Suds and Seventh Generation)
- 2Arm & Hammer Plus OxiClean (stain fighters formula)3rd place
beat nine more expensive brands
- 3Gain Oxy Boost
tied 9th place (with Persil)
- 4Persil ProClean
tied 9th place (with Gain)
- 5Amazon Basics2nd place
- 6All Free & Clear1st place
best in lineup
- 7Molly's Suds
tied 5th place
- 8Seventh Generation
tied 5th place
- 9ECOS12th place
- 10Biokleen8th place
- 11Tide Pods4th place
- 12Tyler Glamorous Wash11th place
White brightness/color protection rank
- 1Tide6th place
some stain transfer to unstained areas
- 2Arm & Hammer Plus OxiClean (stain fighters formula)5th place
- 3Gain Oxy Boost3rd place
- 4Persil ProClean1st place
best at keeping shirt bright white
- 5Amazon Basics4th place
- 6All Free & Clear8th place
- 7Molly's Suds7th place
- 8Seventh Generation
tied 10th place (with ECOS)
- 9ECOS
tied 10th place (with Seventh Generation)
- 10Biokleen13th place
worst
- 11Tide Pods2nd place
- 12Tyler Glamorous Wash
not individually ranked; narrator says it leaves a strong perfume smell rather than a bright white finish
Red shirt dye transfer rank
- 1Tide8th place
- 2Arm & Hammer Plus OxiClean (stain fighters formula)3rd place
- 3Gain Oxy Boost4th place
- 4Persil ProClean1st place
best color preservation
- 5Amazon Basics5th place
- 6All Free & Clear7th place
- 7Molly's Suds12th place
- 8Seventh Generation9th place
- 9ECOS6th place
- 10Biokleen11th place
- 11Tide Pods2nd place
- 12Tyler Glamorous Wash13th place
worst
Cow manure hot wash (qualitative)
- 1Tide
probably the best so far
- 2Arm & Hammer Plus OxiClean (stain fighters formula)
made a lot of progress but still work needed
- 3Gain Oxy Boost
did not perform quite as well as Arm & Hammer
- 4Persil ProClean
did not perform quite as well as Tide
- 5Amazon Basics
still in pretty bad shape
- 6All Free & Clear
a lot of manure stains left
- 7Molly's Suds
a lot of manure stains left
- 8Seventh Generation
still looking pretty dirty
- 9ECOS
even dirtier than Biokleen
- 10Biokleen
still pretty dirty
- 11Tide Pods
did better than average
- 12Tyler Glamorous Wash
dirtier than most of the other brands
Gear oil stain rank (post-manure retest)
- 1Tide1st place
stain almost totally removed
- 2Arm & Hammer Plus OxiClean (stain fighters formula)6th place
- 3Gain Oxy Boost3rd place
- 4Persil ProClean2nd place
- 5Amazon Basics7th place
- 6All Free & Clear4th place
- 7Molly's Suds8th place
- 8Seventh Generation10th place
- 9ECOS12th place
worst
- 10Biokleen11th place
- 11Tide Pods
implied 5th place (narrator says it barely outperformed Arm & Hammer's 6th place finish, but does not state an explicit ordinal for Tide Pods)
- 12Tyler Glamorous Wash9th place
Mustard stain rank
- 1Tide1st place
- 2Arm & Hammer Plus OxiClean (stain fighters formula)7th place
- 3Gain Oxy Boost2nd place
- 5Amazon Basics13th place
worst
- 6All Free & Clear10th place
- 7Molly's Suds4th place
- 8Seventh Generation8th place
- 9ECOS11th place
- 10Biokleen9th place
- 11Tide Pods12th place
- 12Tyler Glamorous Wash3rd place
- 4Persil ProCleannot tested
Graphite/oil stain rank (original 6-stain test)
- 1Tide1st place
best in the lineup
- 2Arm & Hammer Plus OxiClean (stain fighters formula)2nd place
just ahead of Tide Pods
- 6All Free & Clear6th place
barely ahead of Biokleen
- 7Molly's Suds13th place
worst; struggled to lighten stain
- 8Seventh Generation11th place
- 9ECOS10th place
- 10Biokleen9th place
barely edged out the plain-water control
- 11Tide Pods3rd place
- 12Tyler Glamorous Wash12th place
- 3Gain Oxy Boostnot tested
- 4Persil ProCleannot tested
- 5Amazon Basicsnot tested
Tomato juice rating
- 2Arm & Hammer Plus OxiClean (stain fighters formula)1
(best possible rating)
- 3Gain Oxy Boost2
- 4Persil ProClean2
- 5Amazon Basics2
- 1Tidenot tested
- 6All Free & Clearnot tested
- 7Molly's Sudsnot tested
- 8Seventh Generationnot tested
- 9ECOSnot tested
- 10Biokleennot tested
- 11Tide Podsnot tested
- 12Tyler Glamorous Washnot tested
All measurements (1 more)+
Overall average finish
- 1Tide3
declared overall winner
- 3Gain Oxy Boost3.7
explicitly stated third-place overall finish
- 2Arm & Hammer Plus OxiClean (stain fighters formula)not tested
- 4Persil ProCleannot tested
- 5Amazon Basicsnot tested
- 6All Free & Clearnot tested
- 7Molly's Sudsnot tested
- 8Seventh Generationnot tested
- 9ECOSnot tested
- 10Biokleennot tested
- 11Tide Podsnot tested
- 12Tyler Glamorous Washnot tested
How it was tested
- six common household stains on white cotton shirts (egg/protein, motor oil with graphite, coffee, mustard, tomato sauce, soy sauce), extra small cold-water top-loader wash
- graphite/motor oil stain removal rank (from the six-stain test)
- mustard stain removal rank
- soy sauce combo stain removal rank
- white brightness/color protection rank on unstained fabric
- egg stain removal (described qualitatively, not individually ranked)
- tomato juice stain removal (rated on a numeric scale, not ranked 1st to last)
- coffee stain removal (rated on a numeric scale, not ranked 1st to last)
- red cotton t-shirt dye transfer/color protection rank
- cow manure stain and odor removal, hot water wash (qualitative only)
- gear oil stain removal rank on manure-soaked shirts (separate retest after the manure wash)
- overall average finish/ranking across all tests
“And the Tide liquid laundry detergent came out on top with an average finish or rating of three.”
Data notes and caveats
12 detergent brands plus a plain-water control across roughly a dozen distinct stain/odor sub-tests; only the top 3 overall finishers (Tide, Arm & Hammer, Gain) were given an explicit average-finish ranking by the narrator, so products 4 through 12 in this file are listed in transcript introduction order, not a stated overall rank, and each product's individual sub-test placements are preserved in its results/notes instead. The plain-water control (no detergent) is excluded from products[] since it is not a purchasable brand, but it notably beat several real detergents in multiple sub-tests (8th on the original oil stain, 6th on mustard, 12th on soy sauce, 10th on dye transfer), which is worth surfacing as a caveat. Two price strings have caption ambiguity and are flagged rather than corrected: All Free & Clear's per-unit cost is stated as "20 cents per ounce" (breaks the per-load pattern used elsewhere) and Tide Pods' price sentence drops a unit ("$28 for 93"). Meta chapters have their own typos versus the description (BioClean for Biokleen, EOS for ECOS, Puril ProClean for Persil ProClean) but still map one chapter per product.
