Laundry detergents come in different shapes and serve different purposes. This is not a marketing gimmick to make the consumer buy more. Every brand targets a specific niche in the laundry world. Some laundry detergents are hypoallergenic for people with sensitive skin. Others make whites even whiter. Yet a third would enhance colors and so on.
And then there are laundry detergents with bleach. Their main purpose is to remove stains, preserve colors, make whites brighter, and add some fragrance to the laundry in the bargain. That sounds like a tall order. But these 9 best laundry detergents with bleach get the job done better than the others.
- Best for Colors and Whites: Tide 84998 Laundry Detergent with Bleach
- Best In-Wash Pre-Treatment: All Mighty Pacs Laundry Detergent 4 In 1
- Best Multipurpose: ARM & HAMMER Plus OxiClean 5-in-1 Power Paks
- Best Stain Fighter: Biz Laundry Detergent Liquid Boosters, Stain & Odor Removal
- Best for Odors and Stains: Persil ProClean Liquid Laundry Detergent, Odor Fighter
- Best for Eco-friendly Cycles: Tide Plus Bleach Alternative Safe on Colors
- Best Additive: Clorox 2 for Colors – Stain Remover and Color Brightener
- Best Hypoallergenic: Charlie’s Soap Laundry Powder Set Color Safe with Booster & Oxygen Bleach
- Best Value: Persil Liquid Laundry Detergent, ProClean Scent
What to Look for
Oxygen Bleach
We all know that bleach is one of those compounds that must be handled cautiously. But there are two types of bleach that are used in laundry detergents.
The first is chlorine bleach. This is a hazardous chemical with reactive qualities that makes it bind and interact with the other chemicals in the detergent and fabric softeners, posing a health risk.
Oxygen bleach, on the other hand, is a safer compound to use with detergents. It doesn’t react to chemicals and doesn’t bind with the fabrics. Always ensure the detergent you use has oxygen bleach, not chlorine bleach.
Powder or Liquid
Laundry detergents can be classified broadly as either powder or liquid. Each has its advantages. Powder detergents have a longer shelf life as long as you store them properly. But liquid detergents are easier to handle, measure, and store.
Liquid detergents dissolve faster in the water, whether you’re using hot or cold water. And the package won’t spoil if it’s exposed to damp air, unlike powder detergents that tend to clump.
Color Safety
Color safety is a major concern every time you do the laundry. Although you should always wash the whites in their own load separate from the colors, it often happens that they get mixed.
In that case, you need to make sure that your laundry detergent is color safe. Some brands, such as Tide, can make the whites whiter and the colors brighter with the same product.
The 9 Best Laundry Detergents with Bleach
Please note that all the product links are paid and will take you to Amazon.
1. Best for Colors and Whites: Tide 84998 Laundry Detergent with Bleach
Right off the bat, Tide dazzles with its ability to handle colors and whites. The 84998 is a powder that not only has bleach to handle stains it also preserves the colors and even enhances them.
At the same time, you can wash the whites safely as its formula targets the whites and make them look bright. But that’s not all that makes Tide stand out. It also fights tough stains and kills germs.
One of the main advantages of adding bleach to the laundry is its ability to remove stains. This saves you the time and effort of treating the stains pre-wash.
Tide combines the stain-removing power of the bleach with its own formula, which works on colors and whites. Another advantage is that the formula also kills the germs and bacteria in the clothes.
Tide works against a wide variety of stains, including grass stains, food stains, and oil and grease stains, as well as smoke and bad odors in the clothes. It can be used with all types of washers, including high-efficiency (HE) machines, and it doesn’t contain phosphates.
2. Best In-Wash Pre-Treatment: All Mighty Pacs Laundry Detergent 4 In 1
All Mighty took the stain-fighting concept to a whole new level. Instead of just removing stains the usual way with bleach, it combines the power of 3 stain removers in its formula.
These stain removers include compounds that you only find in products in the market that specialize in treating stains pre-wash. So what you get with All Mighty is a detergent that pre-treats the stains during washing.
But that’s one feature of the All Mighty. What about the other 3 features of the 4-in-1 product? The laundry detergent also takes care of the colors and whites, leaves the laundry smelling good, and maintains the integrity of the fabrics.
That’s the secret to the All Mighty’s formula.
Despite its power in treating and removing stains, it doesn’t damage the clothes themselves and only targets the stains.
The All Mighty comes in a package that contains 60 packs. You add one pack per laundry load. So the package is good for 60 loads of laundry. It’s also safe to use with all types of washers, including HE ones.
3. Best Multipurpose: ARM & HAMMER Plus OxiClean 5-in-1 Power Paks
If All Mighty is a 4-in-1 laundry detergent, Arm & Hammer is a 5-in-1 product. Its functionality extends beyond just removing the toughest stains of all types.
It also enhances colors, brightens whites, removes odors, and adds a fragrance to the clothes. In short, it’s a convenient laundry detergent that packs a punch as it targets more than one hundred types of stains and odors.
One of the key ingredients of Arm & Hammer is Oxiclean. This is one of the most popular stain removers in the market based on sales alone.
So combining the power of Oxiclean into the powerful formula of Arm & Hammer gives you an idea about the stain fighter prowess of this product.
The convenience of Arm & Hammer is another key feature of its popularity and success. It comes in packs that you conveniently empty into the washer.
You don’t have to worry about measuring the detergent or whether you added too much or too little. The package contains 40 packs which gives you 40 washes in total.
4. Best Stain Fighter: Biz Laundry Detergent Liquid Boosters, Stain & Odor Removal
What makes Biz take a place on this list is its stain-fighting power. It doesn’t make any claims about brightening whites or enhancing colors. It simply fights stains with 4 powerful stain removers combined into one product.
These include enzymes and peroxides along with detergents and fragrant agents. This stain-fighting power allows Biz to treat and remove stains of different types and sizes efficiently.
But just because it doesn’t enhance colors or makes whites whiter doesn’t mean that Biz is not safe to use with colors.
Its formula targets the stains, not the colors or the fabrics. So much so that it’s safe to add to your pre-soak cycles to work on the stains directly before washing the clothes.
And since it comes in liquid form, you won’t have to worry about suds marks on the laundry or having to use an extra rinse cycle.
5. Best for Odors and Stains: Persil ProClean Liquid Laundry Detergent, Odor Fighter
Persil is an established brand in the laundry detergent market. Usually, popularity and high sales are the result of years of experience refining and honing the laundry detergent and perfecting it to meet the needs of the consumers.
Persil ProClean is a good example of a product that won the approval of the users with its ability to remove odors, treat stains, and preserve the quality of the colors and fabrics.
It’s no easy feat, especially when we consider that stain removers often negatively impact the colors and the fabrics themselves.
However, Persil ProClean strikes a good balance between the compounds that fight stains in its formula and the agents that protect both the fabrics and the colors. As a bonus, it destroys bad odors in the clothes and replaces them with its own fragrance.
Persil ProClean performs deep cleaning on the clothes every time you use it. It’s a liquid laundry detergent that works with all types of washers and is optimized for HE washers.
6. Best for Eco-friendly Cycles: Tide Plus Bleach Alternative Safe on Colors
Tide Plus is an advanced laundry detergent that aims to clean better, remove the toughest stains, and do all that in less time. Time is a crucial factor in the different washer cycles.
If you use Quick Wash or other eco-friendly cycles, they usually take less time than the regular or heavy-duty cycles. That’s where Tide Plus shines. It cleans the clothes with the same efficiency even at shorter cycles.
This can be the difference between good cleaning and a shoddy job, especially when you use a washer program that finishes fast. In essence, Tide Plus works with eco-friendly cycles, which save you energy and use less water. It also improves the whiteness of the whites and preserves colors.
Tide Plus is recommended if you’re looking for laundry detergent that works with the quick wash cycle and still delivers good cleaning results.
7. Best Additive: Clorox 2 for Colors – Stain Remover and Color Brightener
We all know firsthand how bleach the archnemesis of colors. Perhaps it happened to you, or you heard someone who used a bleach-based detergent and their color clothes faded. But Clorox 2 for Colors is the answer to this problem.
Not only does Clorox 2 remove stains, and not only does it preserve colors, but it actually brightens them. Thanks to its proprietary formula, Clorox can make your colors look better after each wash.
Clorox 2 is not a detergent per se, but it can be used with your regular detergent to improve the stain-removing power by up to 50 percent more. But it’s not just the colors that get a boost; whites too become even whiter thanks to the whitening agents in the product.
It is safe to use with all types of washers, including HE ones.
8. Best Hypoallergenic: Charlie’s Soap Laundry Powder Set Color Safe with Booster & Oxygen Bleach
Big brands have wider exposure and larger fanbases, but that doesn’t always mean that smaller brands are not just as good. Sometimes the opposite is true. Small businesses often try harder to gain the customer’s trust and satisfaction. This is true about Charlie’s Soap, a small but growing business with exceptional products. One of those is the Laundry Powder Set.
The set includes a laundry detergent with oxygen bleach and boosting agents. As with the other products from this brand, being eco-friendly is at the heart of their mission. The laundry powder has great stain lifting capabilities that can handle different types of stains.
The laundry booster has one job, and that is to remove all residue and traces of the laundry powder during the rinse cycle. I recommend this product for people with sensitive skin and for doing children’s laundry. It’s hypoallergenic and toxic-free.
9. Best Value: Persil Liquid Laundry Detergent, ProClean Scent
If you prefer to stick to established and tried and tested brands, then you can’t go wrong with Persil. The ProClean is a popular choice for people who don’t like toxins such as phosphates in their laundry detergents.
The powerful formula fights tough stains, which comes in handy for washing work clothes, activewear, and other clothes with more than their fair share of stains.
But Persil is also good for your daily wash. Just because it’s a concentrated liquid detergent doesn’t mean you should keep it only for tough stains. It just means that you will need to use less of it for every wash cycle and save some money on the laundry detergent.
Conclusion
Laundry detergents with bleach are not a new thing. They have been around since people started adding bleach to the laundry to remove tough stains.
What’s new, however, is that the bleach component has been refined to not only preserve colors but even make them brighter.
Next, you can check out my article on mixing regular laundry detergent and bleach.