Best and Worst Laundry Detergents of 2025
Liquid, pods, sheets, or powders? Our breakdown of top-performing laundry detergents reveals the winners—and losers—in each category
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The best detergents from Consumer Reports’ tests do a stellar job of removing common stains like body oil and dirt, but they can also tackle tougher ones, like grass and blood. The worst detergents? They’re barely better than water when it comes to removing most stains from your laundry.
But shopping for detergents can be a confusing experience. Our advice is to ignore the marketing hype and focus on performance.
To test how well detergents clean, we launder cloth swatches saturated with some of the toughest stains out there: blood, body oil, chocolate, coffee, dirt, grass, and even salad dressing. After washing, we use a colorimeter to see how much of the stain remains. Our ratings, based on those tests, separate the most effective detergents from those that fall short of their Marvel superpower-like hype.
We’ve also found that cleaning power varies depending on water conditions and the type of detergent. For instance, mineral-rich hard water can diminish your laundry detergent’s performance, leaving clothes stiff, faded, or dingy. CR’s ratings show which laundry detergents perform best in hard water and which don’t.
Our tests also reveal a wide disparity between the performance of the best liquids, pods/packs, powders, and laundry detergent strips. (The latter tested so poorly in our labs that we don’t recommend them.) While laundry strips aid the environment by reducing plastic, they may lack the strong ingredients or concentration levels to do the job. As for powders, you’re likely to find that your choices have narrowed in recent years. “Most detergents sold today are liquid, and their popularity—plus the increase in sales of pods—means that few powders remain on store shelves,” says Kelly Moomey, a CR market analyst.
You can find powder detergents online at Amazon, Walmart, Target, or specialty stores. Because many consumers prefer using powder detergents, CR recently tested them again after a several-year hiatus. You can see the results in our ratings. “We found that the powder detergents didn’t perform as well overall as the top-rated liquids and pods, but they were excellent at removing blood stains,” says Rich Handel, who oversees CR’s detergent testing.
As with pods and sheets, powder detergents get dinged slightly in our tests because they can’t be used for pretreating stains. While that costs powder detergents points in our overall scoring formula, it doesn’t automatically mean powder detergents are ineffective. Most powders we tested were decent at removing sebum (aka body oils) as well as blood stains. In fact, even the worst powders in our ratings—Ariel With a Touch of Downy and sensitive-skin detergent Molly’s Suds Original Unscented—removed blood stains more effectively than most liquids and pods we tested. Keeping a powder detergent on hand could be useful for cleaning blood-tinged football jerseys or period-stained underwear.
If you see a detergent that advertises "Oxi" on its packaging, it generally has a color-safe oxygen bleach. When activated by water, this bleach releases hydrogen peroxide, which helps remove dirt, odors, and stains and brightens whites and colored fabrics. It’s gentler than chlorine bleach, which can damage some fabrics over time and even yellow whites if overused.
“Chlorine bleach is only for whites, unless you’re doing tie-dye,” says Handel. “Oxi, though a milder bleaching agent, will help brighten whites and colors, too. But it’s not as powerful as chlorine-based bleach.”
Below are our recommendations for the best liquid detergents for a variety of laundry needs, from lifting tough stains to cleaning effectively in hard water. We’ve also included the best pods we’ve tested, the best powders from our most recent tests, and the best laundry sheet (despite their overall substandard performance). We close out with the four worst-performing detergents in our tests, with one from each category.
If you don’t see your favorite detergent mentioned here, check our laundry detergent buying guide and ratings of more than 80 different detergents.
Best Liquid Laundry Detergents
These liquid laundry detergents perform well in our tests and rise to the top across various categories—from the best for tough stains to the best value.
A name like Tide Plus Ultra Stain Release comes with high expectations, and our tests show that this detergent delivers. Formulated for high-efficiency (HE) machines, this liquid did a top job removing body oil, salad dressing, chocolate, and plain old dirt from our test samples. We also found it worked exceptionally as a pretreatment for tough stains and was still effective in hard water. (In fact, all of the Tide detergents we tested cleaned very well in hard water.) The drawback? It’s pricey—one of the costlier detergents outside of green or gentle formulas.
Despite its budget price (just 14 cents per load with the 194-ounce bottle), Kirkland Signature Ultra Clean from Costco managed to land in the top five detergents we tested when it came to performance. It impressed us with its ability to remove stains from body oil (think sweaty workout clothes) and also got a top score for removing salad dressing. But Kirkland doesn’t pack the same punch as the top-ranked Tides when it comes to blood and grass stains, so consider the types of stains you typically have to contend with. Like those detergents, though, this one cleans well in hard water. And if you’re concerned about sensitive skin, Kirkland Signature Ultra Clean Free & Clear promises a gentler formula (and, according to our tests, a little less cleaning power) for the same price.
Most manufacturers of hypoallergenic detergents say their products contain no dyes or perfumes, and Kirkland Signature Ultra Clean Free & Clear also carries that claim. It does an exceptional job of removing salad dressing and also proves very effective in removing body oil, dirt, and chocolate stains. It’s also one of the least expensive of the hypoallergenic detergents we’ve tested and is formulated for use in both high-efficiency (HE) and conventional machines.
If the Kirkland is unavailable, the Tide Plus Hygienic Clean 10X Heavy Duty Free/Nature performs similarly well and doesn’t contain dyes or perfumes.
Best Laundry Detergent Pods
These detergent pods are highly rated for their cleaning ability. That said, CR doesn’t recommend pods as a rule and advises they should be avoided in households with children under 6 years old or cognitively impaired adults. Contact with or ingestion of the packets’ liquid contents may pose a risk of serious injury or death.
Tide Plus Hygienic Clean Heavy Duty 10X Power Pods laundry detergent lives up to its super-hero moniker as the top-rated of all pods/packs we’ve tested. It aces our cleaning tests for body oil, salad dressing, and dirt stains. It also does well against blood, grass, and chocolate, and scores near the top for cleaning power in hard water. While it’s not the highest-priced pod we’ve tested, be aware that you’re paying for this performance and the convenience of toss-in-and-wash pods (pretreating stains isn’t an option here).
The Tide Plus Ultra Oxi with Odor Eliminators Power Pods use a similar formula to the Hygienic Clean Heavy Duty variety listed above, with extra odor-eliminating detergent to combat laundry funk. It’s not “heavy duty,” however. You’ll lose a bit of effectiveness in removing body oils in exchange for its ability to fight especially odorous clothing, but it’s still above-average at eliminating those types of stains. Testers found it also works wonders against dirt and salad dressing, and is effective against all other stains except coffee. (But then, we found most detergents fall short in removing coffee stains.)
Best Laundry Detergent Sheet
Designed as an environmentally friendly alternative to liquid detergent, laundry sheets are plastic-free sheets of concentrated laundry detergent held together by resin and paper that dissolve in water. However, their cleaning power falls short of that of other detergents, and they score lower than the lowest-scoring liquids and pods in our tests.
Earth Breeze Liquidless Eco Sheets are the top-rated detergent strips in our ratings, but don’t be misled: These sheets may be green, but they underwhelm on cleaning, earning less-than-satisfactory scores for removing body oil, salad dressing, chocolate, and grass. And you’ll want to avoid blood and coffee stains at all costs because these sheets aren’t at all effective at removing them. They do earn a passable rating for removing dirt, but with inconsistent results, meaning you may need to inspect your clothes after each wash.
Best Powder Detergent
Powder detergents offer some notable benefits and drawbacks compared with liquid detergents (you can’t adequately pretreat your clothes with them, for example), but ultimately, it all boils down to preference. This powder detergent was the highest-rated we tested.
Tide Original is the highest-rated powder detergent we tested due to its stellar ability to remove body oils and blood stains, and it does a solid job at cleaning dirt and grass stains, too, even in hard water. But it was just passable in removing salad dressing and coffee stains, and below the bar for chocolate stains. The detergent we tested comes in a large 143-ounce package with a transparent measuring cup. If you measure precisely, it will only cost you 20 cents per load.
Worst Laundry Detergents
These laundry detergents are cheaper than many of those we recommend, but that doesn’t mean you should spring for them. They perform terribly in our tests, and they’re barely better than water for getting rid of stains. Laundry sheets, while not necessarily cheaper, perform poorly in our tests as a group. But we found Tru Earth Eco Strips, below, most likely to disappoint.
Don’t be taken in by Era 3X Oxibooster’s low price per load: This budget detergent from the maker of the top-performing Tide brand lands at the very bottom of our liquid detergent ratings. It performs best (read: “satisfactorily”) against body oil, salad dressing, and coffee, but disappoints when it comes to removing grass and blood stains, and it’s downright lousy at getting out dirt and chocolate. Performance this dismal could lead to overdosing, with unfortunate consequences for the environment, your wallet, and your clothes (in the form of lingering detergent residue). For a few cents more, you can get a much more effective detergent.
Arm & Hammer Plus OxiClean 5-in-1 Power Packs talk a big game but disappoint in real life. At their best, they get middling scores for removing body oil and grass stains; at worst, they’re abysmal at getting out old-fashioned dirt. In our tests against chocolate, coffee, salad dressing, and blood stains, their performance was simply unsatisfactory. They may cost you a bit less than other pods, but their inability to clean effectively may tempt you to double-dose, washing away any savings.
While we applaud efforts to make laundry products more environmentally friendly, we found the cleaning performance of Tru Earth Eco Strips to be deeply disappointing. Its scores for removing tough stains (body oil, dirt, coffee, and grass) were rock-bottom, and its scores for eliminating salad dressing, chocolate, and blood weren’t much better. Most CR members who offered reviews of the product said they wouldn’t recommend it. If you’re searching for a lightweight, compact, and environmentally friendly laundry solution, you’ll need to keep looking.
Molly’s Suds Original Unscented doesn’t contain brighteners and it’s formulated for sensitive skin, but it’s by far the worst powder detergent in our ratings. Sure, it removes blood stains like a champ, but unless you’re an MMA fighter, that doesn’t do you much good—assuming you wear more than gladiator shorts and open-fingered gloves. This detergent is lousy at cleaning typical body oils and coffee stains, and it’s mediocre at removing dirt, grass, chocolate, and salad dressing stains. Steer clear of this powder.
How CR Tests Laundry Detergents
In our tests, we use stains that are exceedingly hard to remove so that we can detect real performance differences among detergents. But even the best detergents can’t completely remove every stain.
We wash our test loads in cool water because today’s washers are designed to operate using cooler water than traditional top-loaders of the past. We also test detergents using hard water, which has a high mineral content that can reduce the effectiveness of some detergents.
To see how well a detergent performs, we wash stained swatches in two identical washing machines with each detergent and allow them to air dry. (We don’t use a dryer because the heat can alter the stains.) Testers use a colorimeter, a device that measures color intensity, to see how much of the stain remains on each dry swatch.
