Testing the waters: Will cold-water washing catch on?

Over the next 10 years, Procter & Gamble wants its customers to wash at least 70 percent of their laundry in cold water. Part of the company's wide-reaching sustainability program, the aim seems ambitious to some market experts. "It is going to be very difficult to get consumers to switch to cold-water washing," Jacquelyn A. Ottman, author of The New Rules of Green Marketing, due out this fall, tells Marketing Daily. "We are obsessed with cleanliness, and P&G is the company that got us to believe we wanted laundry that was whiter than white, and that you need hot water to get things really clean."

P&G officials are undeterred. "In those instances where consumer habit changes are required to deliver the environmental benefit, consumer education will be part of the solution," Len Sauers, P&G's vice president for global sustainability, said in a press statement.

If Consumer Reports latest tests of laundry detergents are any guide, some cold-water detergents show promise. In fact, Procter & Gamble's Tide 2X Ultra for Cold Water came out on top of our Ratings (for subscribers) while Tide's Coldwater formulation finished 13 out of 32 detergents tested in top-loading washers. Neither cost appreciably more than other detergents in our tests. However, the other cold-water detergent we tested—Biokleen Cold-Water 3X Concentrated—was one of the worst performing for conventional top-loaders.

Washing clothes in cold water can save you $60 a year and P&G isn't the only company going green. Sun Products Corporation, the maker of Wisk and All laundry detergents, introduced a new Wisk Coldwater detergent this past summer. And we'll continue to test the new formulations. But it's too soon to tell if consumers will take the plunge. As Brian Sansoni, spokesman for the American Cleaning Institute, said, "The manufacturers can do the best they can to produce cold-water formulations, but with a product like a detergent, so much depends on the end user adopting it and using it properly."

—Gian Trotta

—Aaron Bailey