The Wash Guide

The Recipe

How much detergent your wash actually needs.

Tell us about the load and you get the dose, the temperature, and why each one is what it is.

Your wash

45 ml

Detergent, about 2 fl oz

40°CWarm

104°F, or Warm on a dial40°C, or 104°F

What moves it here: hard water. We treat not knowing as hard water.

Fabric softener is fine here. Nothing here objects to it, so use it if you like it.

What you are washing

What it is made of

What colour

These three set the temperature and the advice. They never change the dose: wool, silk and delicates take a normal single dose, because they are washed cooler and gentler rather than leaner.

What you are using

How full the drum is

How dirty

Your water

Not sure is treated as hard, which is the generous answer and the one most homes need. Limescale in the kettle is the everyday tell.

Your machine

7 kg

The app

This page asks. The app already knows.

The Wash Guide knows which bottle is in your cupboard, what your machine is and what you washed last, so it answers without asking, picks the right detergent from what you actually own, and keeps the history. This page knows none of that, which is why it asks. It also never remembers you, which is the trade.

Get the app

Doses start from typical manufacturer guidance, about 35 ml of liquid or 70 g of powder for a medium load in average water, and are then adjusted by our own model. The same rules run in the app, checked against it on every change.

Brands and concentrations vary enough that any figure like this is typical rather than exact, so treat it as a starting point and let the bottle overrule us where the two disagree. It doses detergent only: fabric softener and pre-treatments are not measured here.