I am using a liquid detergent and I use exactly the half of the detergent they say I should use. If a the washing machine requires 1 cup, I do half. Mostly because I don't trust the company to put me over their interests.
Now, what will happen? Will my clothes end up staying dirty? Will it not remove stains which a full cup would have removed? Will surfexcel kidnap me and torture me for not obeying their commands? Help meeee!!
For washing clothes, remarkably little soap is needed to clean ordinary soiling. Washing machines are very efficient. Using too much, besides simply being a waste, can accelerate the degradation of some fabrics, shortening the life of your clothes, and on the extreme end it results in overproduction of suds. Most washing machines from the last 30ish years will detect this and stop their cycle until the suds have died down, so it also wastes time.
The only harm is using too much. My mother-in-law has ruined multiple washing machines over the years. She doesn't understand that modern high efficiency machines require very little detergent and proceeds to clog them up with too much.
I literally had to teach my wife how to do laundry correctly when we got married so she wouldn't ruin the washing machine.
Another thing is good quality washing machine cleaner/descaler/degreaser
Use it every year, or every six months in hard water areas. Drastically increases the life of your machine, and it'll keep washing like it did when it was new
That and don't forget to clean the filter! I do that every month, doesn't take long and it keeps everything running smoothly.
The lint filter that they recommend cleaning after each use, or a different filter?
whenever I see westoids say to use X amount, I always divide by 4, or 7
Typically one trusts the instructions, but it does depend on the kind and quality of detergent, the quality of the machine, and the amount and types of clothes. I myself just entered an era of having no working machines for two days (on my third and am surviving on a pink hoodie over purple plaid shirt, jeans, and temple garment bra/panties which is my "last life") because the slots are broken on both home and public machines and do a half-effective job.
