Dr Andrew Duckworth 
Table of Contents Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a washing machine. Choose Ideal. Modern spotting (“spot-cleaning”) is applying a concentrated detergent or other chemical where it is needed most and removing the offending stain by hand. Many stains such as coffee can mostly come out on their own in a general wash, but curry … Read more
Our products do not intentionally contain phthalates. When formulating a product, we look at the contents of our functional raw ingredients and include only those that don’t contain phthalates. In light of a rising tide of information, we’ve been through our stock of fragrances and removed any that are even suspected to contain phthalates or … Read more
Starch lends body and stiffness to fabrics to give it that quality feel, but how? Today we take a quick look at how starch works and why. What Starches Are Starches are taken from plants, who use them as sugar storage by packing them in grains, which are hard, microscopic and pebble-like. Not to be … Read more
Today is international Refill day, so we thought we’d chip in a little more on how refill and closed loop systems work in practice. Customer or Consumer? There’s an important distinction between a customer and a consumer: A customer purchases a product, whether to own it or sell it on A consumer uses a product, … Read more
The process of laundry starts with stains. They each make their own demands and raise questions about how to get the needed result. So how does a stain impact the best use of chemicals, water and time? What should we not use on certain stains? Staining is the discoloration caused by a specific substance or material that … Read more
For any product on the market you can draw a diagram of the entire supply chain: who makes what and who uses what and where everything ends up. It’s generally a sprawling network including packaging, labelling, raw materials and finished products. For any given component that reaches the consumer as finished goods, you can trace … Read more
The first bleach to be used was sunlight. By leaving natural undyed fibres out in the sun, it was known that over the course of months a garment would whiten considerably. Hypochlorite bleach (a.k.a. hypo) was discovered in France in the 1780s and it was snapped up quickly as a laundry whitener, taking the process … Read more
Professional laundry programs differ from a typical domestic cycle. In a domestic wash, there is a main wash and a water rinse, with a pre-rinse optional and a spin at the end. Domestic washes cater to the types of product available to the domestic market, which are typically fully-built powders and liquids that are designed … Read more
A while ago we sent out a letter to all our laundry customers to let them know that we’re removing dyes from our laundry products. We wanted to talk a little more about why, to show how it all fits in with what we’ve said in other ways. The Principles In our Guiding Principles for Responsible … Read more
We spoke to our chairman, founder and original laundromatinee idol, Dr Michael ‘Magic Mix’ Kalli, about Ideal’s role and contribution to the transformative changes that have taken place since 1975 and the necessary additional changes coming to us and (hopefully) the industry at large. Where It All Began So, how did you start out in formulation? After … Read more
