Detergents containing cationic hydroxyethyl cellulose: Benefits on dark garments leveraging a consumer relevant wash method

Abstract The industrial standard methods to evaluate color care of detergents leverage technical fabrics and use known dye standards from A.I.S.E. (International Association for Soaps, Detergents and Maintenance Products). This has some limitations: (1) it is not always following the latest fashion trends; (2) overall color fading of a garment is due to both dye bleeding out of the fabric as well as friction during the wash leading to fabric texture changes. The latter depends on parameters such as fabric type and surface area that could be better assessed on real garments. To overcome the above limitations, we have designed a new protocol considering the incidence of garment types, fiber and dye chemistry. Leveraging this protocol, we assessed the effect of the presence of a cationic hydroxyethyl cellulose in a commercial detergent formulation on dark fabrics/garments. Our results indicate that the commercial detergent formulation with cationic hydroxyethyl cellulose delivers dark/black color benefit.