The New Hotness

The most recent Tide HE Laundry Detergent bottles seemed smaller than the one we were about to empty and, indeed, they were:

Tide HE shrinkflation - bottle labels — Tide HE shrinkflation – bottle labels

Call it 9% smaller, based on the volume in liters. I suspect the price was also 9% higher, but that would require more digging in the file cabinet than seems justified.

Note that both bottles claim “64 loads”, each with an asterisk (well, a lozenge ◊ symbol) explained on the label:

Tide HE shrinkflation - new load bars — Tide HE shrinkflation – new load bars

That’s the new chart. The old chart was more explanatory:

Tide HE shrinkflation - old load bars — Tide HE shrinkflation – old load bars

Note the “just below Bar 1 on cap” weasel wording. The term “meniscus” enters the chat, although laundry detergent doesn’t have much in the way of surface tension.

One might reasonably assume the bars on the new cap have gotten shorter, so that the volume of detergent used for each load would be smaller.

One would be wrong:

Tide HE shrinkflation - cap capacity marks — Tide HE shrinkflation – cap capacity marks

The blue cap on the right is one we’ve been using for the last few years, because I put black tape at the level of the first bar to match our “Medium” loads. I cannot imagine how much dirt would require filling the cap to Bar 5.

The clear cap on the left is the new cap. I filled the blue tap to the top of Bar 5 with water and poured it into the clear cap, where it comes about 3/4 of the way to the top of the new Bar 5. Evidently, the amount of detergent required to get grubby clothes clean has increased by 33%.

The old cap holds just shy of 4 fluid ounces to the top of Bar 5:

Tide HE shrinkflation - old cap bar 5 capacity — Tide HE shrinkflation – old cap bar 5 capacity

The new cap holds 5.5 fluid ounces to the top of its Bar 5:

Tide HE shrinkflation - new cap bar 5 capacity — Tide HE shrinkflation – new cap bar 5 capacity

If you have really crusty clothing, you’re now using 36% more detergent per load.

The obvious arithmetic shows the old bottle holds 23 “Bar 5” loads and the new bottle holds 15.

To the limit of my measuring ability, both caps hold 1.3 fluid ounces to the top their respective Bar 1 levels. I cannot vouch for the “just below” level, but I suspect more accurate measurements would show the new caps have slightly lower volume at that level, juuust enough to make the “64 loads” weasel wording come out right.

As with all too many such claims, they lie.

The New Hotness

Tide HE Laundry Detergent: Shrinkflation