Before you buy that next gallon, remember this, OK?
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Tide With Bleach Now Sanitizes Laundry
CINCINNATI, Feb. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Because kids' shirt sleeves are handier than tissues. Because your baby's favorite blanket gets dragged across the floor.
Because your dishrag has seen every nasty part of the kitchen. Now, Tide with Bleach is the only detergent that sanitizes laundry.
New advertising for the brand will debut on February 15.
''Since its introduction more than 50 years ago, Tide has always been trusted to give consumers what they want -- whiter whites, brighter colors, and cleaner
clothes,'' said Susan Arnold, vice president of P&G Fabric Care. ''Today, consumers want more. Tide with Bleach answers that call by delivering the additional
benefit of sanitizing their laundry.''
Consumer Attitudes and Practices
In addition to consumer requests, changes in fabrics and the laundry process also prompted the company to look into sanitizing laundry, said Dick Carpenter,
associate director, P&G Fabric Care, Research & Development. ''Sanitizing your laundry is not a new idea, but it is one that has become increasingly frustrating
and difficult to do with today's products and fabrics,'' he said. ''Historically, people have tried to sanitize their dish rags, towels, undergarments and other fabrics in a
number of ways -- from using very hot water; to separating soiled garments, doing extra wash loads or adding chlorine bleach to the wash cycle.'' Unfortunately,
such steps take additional time and can be damaging to fabrics.
''In the past, a large percentage of washable fabrics were white,'' Carpenter said. ''Today, about 75% of fabrics contain color, and colors can fade dramatically
with the use of chlorine bleach.''
Tide with Bleach Technology
''That's where Tide with Bleach offers a new choice,'' Carpenter said. ''It can be used as an everyday detergent and to sanitize laundry, whenever consumers feel
they need it, across a broad range of washable items, including whites and colors.''
Carpenter said the patented oxygen bleaching system in Tide with Bleach is the key to its performance: ''In the late 1980s, we formulated this unique bleaching
system to help keep colors bright, while -- at the same time -- delivering superior performance on whitening and stain removal. To sanitize laundry, we kept the
same familiar ingredients, but optimized the proportion of certain materials.''
Carpenter added: ''This was not an easy task. To meet the laundry sanitizing registration criteria established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
we had to demonstrate that we consistently killed at least 99.9 percent of bacteria -- in particular Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae, two common
types of bacteria that are representative of other bacteria and can also be among the most difficult to kill.''
Bacteria and Laundry Facts
In the course of its research, Carpenter said the company began to assemble a more precise picture of what happens to bacteria on fabrics during the wash cycle.
Company scientists confirmed that:
* Bacteria -- from food, body soils and other sources -- can easily get
into fabrics
* These bacteria can transfer from fabric to fabric during the wash cycle.
* Potentially harmful bacteria can survive the wash cycle.
To build on those learnings, the company turned to outside experts, including Dr. Elizabeth Scott, a microbiologist and published authority on home hygiene.
According to Dr. Scott, microbiologists had previously raised questions about bacteria in laundry, but until recently, they did not have enough data to build
constructive answers about the potential role laundry sanitization might play in the broader context of home hygiene practices.
''Many of us, myself included, assumed the wash cycle was reliably reducing bacteria in fabrics,'' she said. ''But several changes in the laundry process over the last
10 to 20 years, especially the reduction in water temperature, may have impacted the hygiene properties of this process, overall.''
Separately, Scott noted, the potential for bacteria to transfer from wet surfaces to human hands is well documented. ''Thus, we have identified a certain progression
that wasn't clear to us before,'' she concluded. ''Bacteria get into laundry; higher-than-expected counts of bacteria can survive the laundry process, including
pathogenic, or 'disease-causing,' bacteria; and those surviving bacteria could very well transfer to human hands, thus being re-circulated to others in the home.''
Scott emphasized that it is impossible, from this evidence, to make general assumptions about potential risks.
''As with any human encounter with bacteria, the chances for infection will vary from one individual or home to the next,'' she said. ''So while we can not yet make
any sweeping statements, it's fair to say that laundry -- as a piece of the larger home hygiene puzzle -- deserves more attention. And in general, it continues to make
sense to reduce our exposure to disease-causing bacteria, whether we find those bacteria in laundry or some other part of the home.''
General Background
The introduction of new Tide with Bleach will receive a full range of advertising and marketing support -- including both national television and print advertising.
Tide is America's favorite laundry detergent. Introduced in 1946, it quickly became known as the ''washday miracle.'' Tide with Bleach joined the family in 1988
and is the top-selling brand in the category of ''with-bleach'' detergents. Today, the Tide family includes powder and liquid forms of Tide, Tide Free and Tide
Mountain Spring; Tide with Bleach and Liquid Tide with Bleach Alternative.
SOURCE: The Procter & Gamble Company |
