Since moving away from home to attend university I am now cooking, cleaning and washing all for myself instead of leaving to my mum! My mum sent me away with a small pack of this Surf washing powder as it what we had been using at home recently and I can often be quit fussy at what my clothes smell like. The powder says it contains essential oils and has a 'tropical lily and ylang ylang' smell which I assume is another type of flower as the box is decorated with them. The box is also bright pink which I like!

The box explains how much to use with a small table that indicates soft, medium or hard water and how badly stained the clothes are and says to add an extra 100ml for programmes with pre wash which would be for me as I am using the washing machines provided by my student halls. I have to admit I have only just read this as I just guessed when using the powder the few times I have done my washing!
So when I needed to do my first wash I took this down with me and I was doing a white wash, the washing machines that are provided for us have a lid with two sides, one for powder and one for fabric softener, I had no idea how much to use so I just tipped in a load and hoped for the best. There is a '10' on the front which I am guessing shows how many washes you are going to get out of the box so I estimated at using a tenth of the box which seemed to work as I came back half an hour later to wonderfully smelling, clean clothes!

The smell instantly hit me when I opened the washing machine, the smell is extremely nice, it's clean and flowery but not overpowering like many other powders can be. I checked the bottom of my socks to check how well the powder had worked as the bottoms of my socks as these are the items that tend to get the most dirty, especially in student halls and they were as good as new. Saving some money I chose not to use the tumble dryer and hung the clothes in my room to dry which left a nice smell around my room and afterwards many of my flatmates said my room smelt really nice! I have since used the tumble dryer when doing my sheets and towels and the smell is still there, slightly less noticeable as the clothes are obviously dry but when actually smelling the clothes they smell clean and going to bed that night my bed smelt really fresh too.

I do not have any preference of which brands to use, apart from staying away from shops own as they can sometimes smell a bit chemically but I would really recommend this at the smell is so lovely and the clothes are definitely clean. The box suggests ways to use the powder in the machine to be more environmentally healthy but unfortunately I cannot do this as my washes are already programmed but I am confident it would work just as well.