Over the years I must have tried at least four different laundry detergents made specifically for active wear. Not only do I run 5 days a week, I also go to yoga class, do strength training at the gym, and ride my bike when I have the energy, so over the course of a week, I have a lot of sweaty, smelly athletic clothes. Technical fabrics tend to smell even after being washed because the residues coming from sweat aren’t truly washed out and build up over time. Many laundry detergents can’t truly get rid of the funk, so you’re left with supposedly clean active wear that stinks before you even put it on.
When I came across some information for Rockin’ Green laundry detergent, I was intrigued. This detergent is specifically made with enzymes to remove stains and odors from fat, protein and starch. Further, the scent of Tea Tree Oil rinses clean after washing so you’re not left with perfumes meant to mask odors. The icing on the cake is this detergent is environmentally friendly, with biodegradable surfactants, natural cleaning agents, and plant derived enzymes. I asked for a sample to be sent to me and within a couple of days received two single use containers in the mail, along with a water test strip (to test pH), and a coupon for future orders.
Since I knew some of my athletic clothes have lingering smells straight out of the drawers, I thought I should go the heavy-hitting route and do a pre-soak before washing the clothes. I added the entire one-use container, as directed, and soaked my clothes in my tub (my front-loading washer doesn’t have a pre-soak setting) for one hour. The water was a gross-looking dirty brown color, even though it’s not like these clothes had visible dirt or mud on them. I assume this meant the detergent removed some or all of the funk that was left on my athletic clothes that my previous detergent did not remove.
After soaking the clothes for an hour, I drained the water and pulled them out of the tub and put them in the washing machine and ran a cycle without adding any additional detergent (per the instructions). Then I put everything into the dryer (no fabric softener like usual for me) and smelled the results.
With previous laundry detergents I’ve tried that were made specifically for athletic clothes, there still seemed to be a slight lingering smell in many of my older clothes after washing and drying a load of laundry. With Rockin’ Green, I only noticed a slight lingering smell in one shirt- just one shirt out of a huge load. I’m going to try doing another soak before I wash the next load and see if that gets all of the funk out of that shirt but my feeling is it will.
Bottom line- this detergent really works! I did a little more research into the products offered by Rockin’ Green and it turns out the detergent for active wear has enzymes specifically to remove odors from sweat that the Classic Rock detergent doesn’t have. Other than the detergent for athletic wear, there are detergents for hard water, cloth diapers, a pre-treatment ammonia remover, and even dishwasher detergent.
You can buy Rockin’ Green products at their site, RockinGreen.com (free shipping on all orders and all orders ship the same day) or at Amazon.
Happy running!
Donna
I gotta presoak?!!! Wouldn’t vinegar work in the same manner?
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No, you don’t have to presoak. I just had some older clothes that I thought would do better with a presoak. Going forward, I’ll just do a regular wash and that should be fine, now that I’ve removed all of the built up gunk.
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I see.
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I was just talking about this problem the other day with my mom. I need to find this!
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I was skeptical because of the other brands I’ve tried that just didn’t completely get rid of the smell, but this stuff really works.
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That would be nice as I really hate feeling like I stink before I even begin running!
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Always looking for detergents that can actually get the stink out! 🙂
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I used to be! I’m pretty happy with this one now!
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