Review of Clorox Ultimate Care for All Fabrics
What Clorox Claims about UltimateCare
* It is a gentle bleach
* Can be poured directly onto clothing to pretreat stains
* Contains buffering agents to whiten while being gentle
* Has a soft cotton scent
* Some colored fabrics can be washed with it
Comparisons to Regular Clorox Bleach
The first thing I noticed was a much milder scent. It does indeed smell a little like cotton, but I still detect a slight hint of chlorine – almost like the highschool swimming pool. It definitely has a nicer smell than regular Clorox bleach.
Regular Clorox bleach contains 6% hypochlorite bleach, while the UltimateCare Bleach contains 2.45%.
Ultimate care contains a fragrance that is not added to regular bleach.
UntimateCare contains other ingredients to help whiten clothes – these are listed as nonionic and anionic surfactants.
It has a drain back pour spout with measuring cap, like many liquid laundry detergents have, which makes it quite easy to pour directly onto one spot without splashing. I can’t say that about my regular Clorox bottle, which pours like a jug of milk and sometimes splashes where I don’t want it to.
UltimateCare even looks different. The formula is much thicker (think consistency of a thick laundry detergent), and it has a pearly white color to it.
UltimateCare has a nice handle on the side that makes holding the bottle much easier.
UltimateCare is little more expensive. At WalMart my 30 ounce bottle was $1.84, compared to 99 cents for the 24 ounce bottle of regular Clorox bleach.
The Million Dollar Question – Does it Work?
Yes, Yes, YES!! I love it. Yesterday I washed a load of light colored clothes. My cream colored sweater came out with a stain remaining right in the middle of the chest. I assume it was a coffee stain. I say was because my Clorox UltimateCare removed the stain. I poured it directly on the sweater, scrubbed a bit to make sure it got down into the ribbing, and let it sit for three minutes (according to the directions on the bottle). I then rinsed it out and walla! The stain was gone. Wow, this stuff’s good!
Because we have a septic system and bleach is not good for sewers (it kills bacteria they need to work properly), I don’t bleach my whites on a regular basis. I did a load of white clothes using the UltimateCare, and my husband’s dull T-shirts came out much whiter and brighter.
My kitchen colors are blue, sage green and cream. I have several dish cloths and dish towels that need a good brightening up. The UntimateCare cleaned them great, and didn’t get any of the white blotches on the colored areas like a regular bleach would.
I thought, okay what else can I try it on? I make coffee every day and I have not been able to get the stains out of my clear decanter. A couple of weeks ago I bought some “Dip It” to clean hard water deposits from my coffee maker, and I was hoping it might help remove the coffee stains from the decanter as well. It didn’t. Using liquid dish soap didn’t remove it. As a last resort I poured some UltimateCare bleach in it, washed it with my scrubbie, and when it was rinsed and dried it looked new. Crystal clear! (I am running the decanter through my dishwasher just to be sure all of the bleach is rinsed off before brewing coffee again.)
While I was in the kitchen I poured some in my sink. It is a fairly new sink that was purchased 2 years ago and we kept it when we remodeled the kitchen last summer. It’s made of a composite material that resembles granite, in the color Bisque (the “new almond”) color you see these days. It gets some dark marks from pots and pans that are unsightly – and the only thing that has gotten them out was a cleaning product like Bon Ami or Soft Scrub, something a little abrasive. Well, the UltimateCare cleaned it up in a jiff – and it looks great!
Cons
The Clorox UltimateCare bleach did dry out my hands really bad while using it. I think next time I will wear gloves when I use it for cleaning. In fact, it is recommended on the bottle to use rubber gloves for sensitive skin or for prolonged use.
Cannot be used on wool, silk, mohair, leather, and spandex.
Directions for High Efficiency Washers
Fill machine dispenser to maximum level. Use the extra rinse cycle if your machine is equipped with one.
Ingredients
Hypochlorite bleach, lauryl disethylamine oxide, coconut fatty acids, sodium hydroxide, 2 fragrances, copolymer of styrene acrylate.
According to the Material Safety Data Sheet on Clorox UltimateCare Bleach, “none of the materials in this product are on the IARC carcinogen list”. To view the MSDS on this product, visit:
http://www.thecloroxcompany.com/products/msds/bleach/cloroxultimatecarepremiumbleach.pdf
Cautions
Eye irritant and it may irritate skin. Use in a well ventilated area. Keep out of reach of children. Don’t mix with other household cleaners or chemicals such as toilet bowl cleaners, rust removers, acids, and ammonia based products because it causes toxic gasses. Avoid contact with carpet, wood, painted and paper surfaces.
To Summarize
I will be purchasing this over the regular bleach the majority of times from now on. We have our own septic system which we replaced about 6 years ago to the tune of $12,000. The engineer who designed the new system told me not to use bleach because it kills bacteria, and septics need bacteria to “perk” or work properly. For that reason I use bleach sparingly. However, when I called the 800 number on the bottle and spoke with a rep for the Clorox Company, she told me that the Ultimate Care will not harm septic systems. I am still a bit skeptical about that, since septics cost so much to replace (and we have no other place to put a leach field!). Maybe it’s safer than regular bleach because it contains less than half of the “sodium hypochlorite bleach” that regular bleach contains, but I’m just guessing.
After years of washing cloth diapers using regular bleach, I know that chlorine will break down cotton fibers over time. I just bet that this new Clorox product is much more gentle on cottons!
I will still use regular bleach to spray onto my bathroom grout – nothing gets it clean like bleach does. But for laundry and a few other purposes mentioned, I will be buying Clorox Ultimate Care from now on.
