Balls (for washing)

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Ian coughed up some electrons that declared:

Quote: "Eco balls ionize the water, allowing it to get deep into your clothes and lift the dirt away."

That is clearly as big a load of bollocks as "magnets on your fuel line improve your car's MPG".

How does ion-enriched water emulsify grease (cooking/body/car), being one of the functions of detergent?

Ditto.

Hope that cleared things up :)

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim S

On an aside, if you really want to help the environment, you might consider:

1) Super concentrated washing liquid, so no-one's paying to transport a load of water around the planet unnecessarily - I use this, no different to the regular liquid, except I use less (obviously).

2) A "green friendly" brand like Ecover. I must admit I've never much liked Ecover washing up liquid (it's not as good as Fairy IMO) and I've not tried the washing liquid/powder, but compared to the "balls" at least it *will* perform it's stated function to a greater extent.

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim S

Donno but for Eco balls:

# Reuse for up to 1000 washes (the same as approx. 50 boxes of washing powder!)

The powder we use (Fairy non-bio automatic) comes in 11.4kg boxes which =

state "120 standard washes" (defined as medium soil, medium water, 230ml= ) or only 8.3 of boxes per 1000 washes. We use 50ml/wash so get about 560 =

washes/box...

# Cost less than 3p per wash (normal washing powder costs approx. 25-30p= per wash!)

11.4kg box costs =A314.04 inc VAT or 2.5p/wash... These boxes of powder = are bought from CostCo, I don't think you see them in the normal supermarket= s.

Magonoball. How hard is your water? Ours is pretty soft so it would be n= o benefit.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

I've used Eco balls for about two years (the same ones), could be longer. I wash two or three loads a week. Spouse's filthy overalls are washed when I've dragged them off his back and accumulated three.

I'm very happy with the result.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Bought some, used once, put in cupboard.

Does that answer your question :)

Chris

Reply to
KiTT

Why are spouse's overalls filthy though? If spouse were a market gardener (citing the one trade I've got some results for) then the "dirt" comes off fine by mechanically washing the overalls with plain water, without even needing balls. One of our neighbours does exactly this - old washing machine out in a shed, no drainage other than a soakaway, so no soap goes into it.

A garage mechanic covered in real oil is going to be a different story.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

You name it, it's on his overalls :-)

From aero fuel to Zen poo (Zen being one of our hens)/

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

"Eco balls ionize the water, allowing it to get deep into your clothes and lift the dirt away." is typical eco-bollox.

"Proven to soften your water by up to 70%" is simply a false statement.

However, beating your clothes between rocks in a river is a well known way of washing and gives you a clue as to how these things work. A few tennis ball sized stones will be a bit noisy in the washing machine though so find a few lumps of plastic of about tennis ball size and chuck them in with a small amount of detergent to achieve the same effect. Just like the real thing they will also shorten the life of your clothes somewhat.

Reply to
Peter Parry

I'm sure you say you are.

Reply to
Bob Eager

SWMBO says: "Rubbish. They beat the shit out of the clothes, like banging on a rock".

Reply to
Bob Eager

There was me imagining you on the bank of the Lower Wharfedale ;-)

Don.

Reply to
Cerberus .

The Aire isn't up to laundering and there are no stones I can manage.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

If you ionise water, you get hydrogen and oxygen, which offgas and have absolutely no cleaning effect.

If you run the machine with just plain water, no balls or detergent, you'll get the same result. It works passably well for a fair while, but in the end you get muck buildup in the machine and permanent pongs.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

SWIMBO uses them. Personally I'm not convinced - and I think she's now thinking (after using them for a few months) that they're not all they're cracked up to be - she reckons needing to use the old powder/tablets once every few weeks to give everything a bit of a kick again...

Gordon

Reply to
Gordon Henderson

Tell Swimbo that she is an intelligent lady that has hit the nail on the head.

Reply to
EricP

That's not such a bad thing, though, is it? If you wash whites with powder, tablets or liquid it is still a good idea to run them with some bleach, Oxyclean or suchlike every now and again. That doesn't imply that the powder, tablets or liquid aren't any good, so why should it be the case with the balls?

Reply to
Bruce

The rock on the shreddies surely if you want to be contextually aligned.

Reply to
Peter Parry

From: Ian Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 Time: 07:36:46

Thanks to everyone for the helpful (and some strange) feedback. I think we'll stick to soap powder.

Reply to
Ian

But can you trust most people to not just squeeze out as much as they did with the old stuff?

Its a bit like the story of boosting toothpaste sales by making the nozzle a bit wider.

MBQ

Reply to
Man at B&Q

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