Stardrops vs Washing Up Liquid/Laundry Gloop

HappyShopper3

Mojo, I clicked on the link but it didn't work, so I just put in http://www.thorntonross.com/household/stardrops.html. On that page is a link to the ingredients but it doesn't appear to be working!

tawnyowls

Link worked for me - this is what it says:

STARDROPS contains the following ingredients:-
Water (Aqua)
Sodium dodecylbenzene sulphonate
Alkyl ether sulphate
Alcohols C9-11 ethoxylated
Bitrex (Denatonium benzoate) solution
Perfume
Limonene (Dipentene)
Bronopol (2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol)
Colour

Also found this site, which gives the ingredients of Procter & Gamble products, including Fairy http://www.scienceinthebox.com/cgi-bin/info-pg/showproduct.pl?lang=en_UK&id=1152-1

I would say (and I'm dredging up long-forgotten chemistry lessons here so anyone with more knowledge, please feel free to contradict), is that the difference between them is that Fairy has sodium lauryl sulphate, which is basically a detergent (found in practically all foaming cleaners, including bath foam and shampoo), whereas Stardrops uses sodium dodecylbenzene sulphonate, and benzene, being a solvent, probably increases the cleaning power.

HappyShopper3

Thanks for that info Tawny. I know my washing up liquid (Cussons morning fresh oxygen antibacterial) says not to use on fabrics, so is it possible to use stardrops in the washing machine instead of laundry powder?