Doing Laundry In The Twilight! (Surf Laundry Liquids Vanilla And Black Orchid)

Member Name: Machair1

Product:	Surf Laundry Liquids Vanilla And Black Orchid
Date:	23/07/09 (278 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Superb cleaning and gorgeous fragrance.

Disadvantages: More expensive than other Surf liquids.

Having brought up a large family, and undertaken more loads of washing than I care to remember, one liquid which I have used time and time again is Surf. I don't use it for coloured items, as these are too delicate and need a special colour liquid to keep them vibrant. Surf is the biological powerful tool I use to eliminate grime from the collars of my husband's work shirts, which face the London underground on a daily basis, as well as all white items I have, including my white linen sheets and towels.

The asset Surf has over many products in this category is that it is cheap, and regularly on offer, so it is not unusual to pick up a bottle which does 18 washes for £2. Recently too there has been an explosion of alternative fragrances to choose from which has meant the washing seems less daunting when you can treat it to fragrances such as "Lemon and Bergamot" or "Tangerine". However Surf has just launched a newbie on the block called "Twilight Sensations Vanilla and Black Orchid". This is a delight and one to try for sure.

The bottle is a concentrated liquid and is part of their "Small and Mighty" range which they developed to reduce carbon emissions during transport. It also helps the consumer because the bottles are smaller and less heavy to carry home. They have also launched one called Jasmine and Black Gardenia in this category.

Jasmine and Black Gardenia and this fragrance Vanilla and Black Orchid are their new premium ranges, and you should expect to see these for about £1 more than the other liquids they market, I paid £3.91 for mine at Ocado where the basic ranges are £2.91, but as I said earlier you may find an offer soon for any of these products.

Surf has collaborated with the Swiss perfume house "Firmenich" to create this fragrance which they are expecting to appeal to women! Surf is actually expanding in their sales and share in the market, and over the last year the market share has grown from 5.4 to 7.5%. The UK has spent 76 million on Surf over the last year-that's a lot of laundry!

The bottle is an almost black with a setting depicting orchids which illuminate the horizon with a spectacular luminous glow. This bottle looks very expensive and classy, and extremely attractive for the kitchen shelf. My son was amazed when he saw this and commented that he thought it would be perfect to use on laundry destined to be worn for a night out!

The liquid smells really lovely with a strong vanilla scent, and the manufacturers claim this will produce excellent results even as low as 15 degrees. Now I am sorry to tell you that I can't test this theory out because my husband is in love with Espares, the internet based company who supply parts for broken appliances. His love of tinkering and fixing things, together with my daughter who is doing a degree in saving the planet at uni, means we have an old machine with a million new parts which trundles on quite happily, but does not have the new low temperature features of an up to date model. However I do use 30 degrees and find this liquid works beautifully.

The incredible thing about this liquid is that it not only smells beautiful, but it removes stains first time. I have never needed to use stain removers at all, and we regularly have stained laundry with items such as tomato, oranges, and grass, and these vanish without a trace with the first wash.

On removal from the machine the laundry smells really fresh, and I don't always use a fabric softener because of this, and so again this is cost effective, though I often add some if the item is something I want to smell fresh for longer, maybe if it isn't worn daily or weekly and is going to languish in a drawer for a while.

They also make this product in capsules and in powder. I don't use powders as I was forever seeing residue on the clothes unless I used an aggressive washing cycle, and as my machine sits behind doors it was difficult to pour into the dispenser, but you could try these other products as they may work for you.

The great thing about this liquid is that you don't need a dosing ball, but can pour this straight into the drawer of your machine. This suits me as those little plastic pots were always going missing when I had them, probably because my cats used them as footballs.

The only downside of this product is that it is biological and I know some people can't tolerate these chemicals on their skin, and so this is something to bear in mind when considering purchase. Having said that my son suffers from mild eczema, and he has never had a reaction to this liquid, so I must assume it is well rinsed out. This is another attribute I must award to this product- that it does rinse clean away leaving no residues at all.

In September there will be an advertising campaign which will include a fairy tale advert intended to suggest the mystery of the twilight hour. That should be interesting!

Surf takes me right back in my mind to the days of it being a square deal! Cheap and out shined by Persil and others, but they have risen above this now and certainly intend to build on this with their new products which are anything but basic.

I really love this product. It has a fragrance which outshines the others in the more basic range, and just this last week garments which I had washed the few days before were still scented with the perfume of this highly effective laundry liquid when I put them on in the morning.

This new fragrance is maybe more expensive, but it is something I am planning to continue to purchase to use on my best white things. This is because the cleaning abilities of this product are outstanding, but the fragrance is the attribute for me, which lingers longer and is absolutely gorgeous.

The most noticeable fragrance is actually on my bed linen which is pure white linen and it smells wonderful when you climb into it last thing at night. I haven't added any softeners at all and I have also noticed that after line drying these sheets are much less creased than with other laundry liquids, so the end result is fresh bed linen which is more crease free. This is very important to me as these are 100% linen, which I prefer to cotton, but they can look creased with some detergents and I don't iron them because it is a chore beyond belief!

This is a brilliant new product and all that remains for me to do is to try the companion product Jasmine and Black Gardenia which sounds equally decadent!

Summary: A great new premium product from Surf