Why Laundry Detergent Sheets Are a Waste of Money – Technologist

Buying the right item for an affordable price often comes with trial and error as money expert Clark Howard has learned over the years.

That’s why he’s dedicated his life to helping consumers save money when they buy products and services that they need.

One product Clark recently raved about is laundry detergent sheets: strips of dissolvable paper that save space in your storage room and reduce mess.

Screenshot of via amazon.com

Consumer Reports rated six brands on cleaning major stain culprits like blood, body oil, chocolate, coffee, dirt, grass, and salad dressing.

Laundry Sheets: Do They Really Clean for the Money?

“I don’t do it well, but I do my own laundry,” Clark says. “I got all excited talking about these new laundry sheets. They’ve been around for a while, but they’ve really gone mainstream only in the last year or so.”

As he often does, Clark checked the ratings of popular items on ConsumerReports.com (subscription needed). The results were not good.

“These sheets just seemed like a perfect idea, except they’re not yet ready for prime time,” he says. “They don’t work. Oh my goodness, they don’t work.”

How Did the Laundry Sheets Perform?

“Consumer Reports says it is a joke how badly every brand of laundry sheets tested in terms of getting your stuff clean, I mean horrible,” Clark says. “A really good laundry detergent pulls a score of 80, the highest rated laundry sheet rates a 29 and the lowest rates an 11.”

Check out Consumer Reports’ full laundry detergent ratings.

What Products Clean Your Clothes for the Money?

According to Consumer Reports, liquid detergents and pods do a much better job cleaning your clothes, including a variety of stains, compared to laundry sheets. On a 100-point scale, test scores from pods and liquid detergents rank in the 70s and 80s — much better than sheets.

Here are the top-rated liquid, pod, and sheet detergents, according to Consumer Reports:

Although laundry sheets may reduce waste, the product ratings indicate that they don’t get the cleaning job done.

“The 29 [rating] is so terrible that you might as well just wash your clothes with water only and no detergent when you get to numbers like that,” Clark says.

Final Thoughts

Clark says he wants to take full ownership for leading anyone who might have purchased laundry sheets at his suggestion.

“If you heard my enthusiasm before about these laundry sheets and got all excited about them and you went out and spent your money and washed your clothes and they were still really not clean, that’s on me. This is my fault,” Clark says. “This was a big fail on my part.”

Clark’s honesty when things go awry is one reason why you can trust that he and Team Clark are doing all they can to help you save — even when things turn out to be a wash.

Want more money-saving tips? Check out Clark’s 4 secrets to save on laundry.

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