Amway, marketers of SA8, say it is an organic detergent. They say, you can even wash plants with the left over wash water since it is not harmful.
I’ve seen the product in action and am sold on their pitch. It dissolves dirt and grime easily and doesn’t need heavy scrubbing for stain removal. An unexpected side-effect is that your hands actually become smoother after use :-)
The one litre bottle costs Rs. 595. But, hey hey there’s a <supposed> trade off here. The quantity used per wash is not much. Around 5 to 10 ml for a bucket full of clothes. I don’t recall the exact calculation of the comparative cost, but the Amway people claim that it’s more or less the same as a Surf or an Ariel.
Even while that isn’t exactly true in my experience, I feel the extra cost is justified by the performance. Try washing jeans after a mudbath (during rains) and you’ll know what I am talking about here.
Plus if you know the Amway distributor personally, you can ask them to give it to you for Rs. 500, which is the cost they purchase at.
Some tips for use:
Since it doesn’t lather easily, you might want to add half a cap of solution to the bucket first and then let it fill up with running tap water.
Soak really dirty curtains and stuff overnite. Even if you plan to wash it in the machine the next morning.
Avoid the heavy brushing routine -- advise your bai about the same. It’s better to gentle rub the folds of the fabric together. Unless you have a really old dirt patch on a shirt collar, you don’t need to scrub.
Use left over water (from soaking daily wear clothes) to soak dust cloths and rags. Even if the water looks dirty it will still dissolve quite a bit of the grunge from such pieces.
Bottomline:
While continuing to use Surf Excelmatic for the washing machine I find SA8 a useful product for all hand wash clothes and for pre-soaking.
And NO, I am not into the Amway business. I do NOT buy any other Amway product either.