Top positive review
364 people found this helpful
A twofer you’re gonna want to read…
By NJ2NC2 on Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2024
My bad. That ONE AND ONLY TIME I perused the manual for my top-loading washing machine — 16 years ago, on the day of installation — I might have overlooked the part recommending periodic, internal cleaning. Probably the reason I find myself typing a review for machine cleaners today. (The OUTSIDE is extremely clean and in pristine condition…so please, no judgement.) I’d always attributed the SCRUD deposits left on clothes (in warm and hot washes) to the shoddy plumbing work that was done on our home, built two years prior to the machine’s installation. [Nothing ever drained well, there were weird odors, and a test cap was left on one of the roof vents which went undiscovered for 14 years!]. I would just shake the slimy, brown flecks/chunks off onto the floor, shove clothes into the dryer, clean up the mess and move on. However, last week’s hot, bleachy load of my favorite, fluffiest towels simply sent me over the edge. My freshly-laundered, snowy-white and fairly expensive “after-bath HUGS” were generously sprinkled with the slimy, dark-brown flecks of crud! So very gross!! After shaking every item and cleaning up, yet again, I’d had ENOUGH and decided to learn how to fix this dilemma. With know-it-all Google being one of the best inventions of the 21st Century, I started there... OMG! First of all, SCRUD (soap crud, I imagine) is so aptly-named. Thankfully, I’m not the only person on the planet this is happening to (relief) and there ARE solutions to my suffering (more relief). Said ‘solutions’ are time-consuming and can get pricey but, at some point, desperate for a fix, ya just gotta bite the bullet and hope for the best. One remedy I discovered was these Affresh cakes. Hmmm…let’s start HERE, it seems easy enough. Plop one in, run the hottest, fullest cycle, wipe out the loosened SCRUD, repeat twice more and go on with your life. Even I can handle that — no appliances to move… no screws, panels or drums to REmove, no repair person to call (yet)…sign me up! I immediately placed my Amazon order for a 6-pack. But, just in case these won’t work, let’s keep searching… Further down the rabbit hole that is Google, I hopped over to the YouTube abyss and found two wonderful videos addressing my exact issue. [Handz for Hire and Ben’s Appliances and Junk]. Handz introduced me to the word SCRUD and, clearly, was experiencing the same thing with his own, but newer, machine. He used vinegar and baking soda, disassembled his machine to remove the wash drum AND manually scrubbed it with a Lysol cleaner. Although he did a wonderful job, this seemed like a LOT more than I could handle or even access myself, so I kept searching. Ben showed a half-assembled washer (for instructional purposes) and recommended using Citric Acid powder and OxiClean to take care of a gunked-up machine. Duly noted, Ben. Thank you, both! Back down the rabbit hole I descended, now in search of information on Citric Acid. Lo-and-behold, this stuff claims to clean practically EVERYTHING I’d ever need to clean: Keurig machine, water kettle, toilet tank and bowl ring, washing machine, shower grime, windows, and more. WOW! I immediately ordered a 2-lb bag of THAT too. Orders arrived, as promised…thank you, Amazon. Since I didn’t have the FIVE HOURS my machine would require to run 3 empty wash loads with Affresh cakes and the follow-up rinse cycle, I began using the Citric Acid powder on other things that needed to be cleaned instead. I started with that stubborn, limescale toilet ring. I dumped 3 Tbsp. of powder into the bowl, dissolved it using the toilet brush, and waited 30 minutes. Well, as water in toilets finds its own level (due to gravity, traps, vents, etc.), the cleaning solution remained just UNDER the ring I was intending to remove. How is that going to work if the liquid is not even soaking the area I’m trying to clean? I added more water to the bowl until the level was back above the ring and the water line self-leveled again — to below the targeted area. I placed a bottle of water in the bowl, hoping the displacement would raise the cleaning solution enough — for long enough — to penetrate the stubborn ring and loosen the scale. Yet again, the water leveled-out to just under the ring. I give up! [Not knocking the Citric Acid at all…I’m sure it would do a fantastic job on bowl or tank stains that are UNDER the water line.] Frustrated, I dove back into the hole and began searching for toilet pumice scrubbers — which a relative swears by. Hundreds more reviews later, I abandoned the search deciding that the risk of clogging my trap with a broken pumice chunk or permanently scratching my porcelain bowl — and causing MORE problems — overshadowed the faint limescale demarcation that only I seem to notice or care about. 🫤 Moving on…electric water kettle. As I only use fresh, filtered, dispensed refrigerator water in my kettle, I have never cleaned it. Whatever germs are in there are getting boiled and it’s left open to dry thoroughly after use. Plus, due to its electrical contacts, it cannot be submerged in water. Over many years of using it, a white, dotted limescale film has coated the bottom and pour spout. Not a big deal for me but it looks unsightly. I used 1 Tbsp. powder and 4 1/2 C of water in kettle, stirred to dissolve, let it come to a boil and then sit for 30 minutes. The limescale dots were softened and easily wiped off with a bottle brush. Rinsed out the kettle and it looks new inside! Ok…impressed. Shower head and faucet aerators? Descaled all in one bowl and they came out working like new…good flow/pressure. Same recipe as kettle (1 Tbsp acid and 4.5 C of boiling water). Suggested time was 15 minutes. Mine had to go a full 30 and some light scrubbing was necessary . Totally worth the effort, though. UPDATE: [If you’re intrigued…] More about the Milliard citric acid powder (Amazon B00EYFKM32) in my review there 7/21/24. Back to laundry: Finally completed the three Affresh cake cycles and ensuing rinse load. After each Affresh cleaning cycle, the only thing I noticed — as far as SCRUD droppings in the bottom of the washer — was one tiny speck. What?! $7 of cleaning cakes, lots of hot water and wasted electricity for only THREE slimy, gross specks? I find more in the drum washing towels with bleach! Hopefully, all of the dissolution and disposal of the gunk happened behind the scenes and simply made it out to the sewer on its own. 🤞🏻 A bonus: although our washer never had any kind of funky odor, it’s GOT to be cleaner than before and the Affresh made the laundry room smell really nice. I gave the machine a day off to rest. I’m now running a test load of white towels and rags that were already clean (hottest temperature, highest water level, bleach, detergent and fabric softener). Making sure that whatever SCRUD flakes might be lurking around, waiting to pounce on something, land on the rags and not the stuff we care about (see paragraph 3). Ok, alarm sounded — that’s done. Let’s take a look… So far, nothing dark and slimy is visible. Taking the first towel out for inspection… No spots on it. Giving it a good shake, just in case. (Floor still clean.) Next one out is a hand towel… Looks good; passed the shake test. The rest… Same results. The bottom of the drum… Nothing. NOT A SPECK OF SCRUD TO BE SEEN AND THE FLOOR IS CLEAN! Going forward, with monthly Affresh cleanings, maybe we’ll get another 16 years out of this washer. Hope this helps at least SOMEone.
Top critical review
907 people found this helpful
Can Cause SEVERE Skin Reaction
By Christina on Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2023
I used this product for the first time about 6 weeks ago and my skin started getting irritated (small red itchy spots), I hadn't changed detergents so it didn't cross my mind that it could be stuff I washed after cleaning our washer. A few days pass, the bumps start turning into hives, I thought that was weird since I hadn't eaten anything different either, chalked it up to stress. A few more days pass and the hives look like a rash and have spread pretty much all over except for my face and neck (I sleep on my back). Around Christmas we had an insane snowstorm and I was so cold that I curled up on my side, the next day I had some of the rash on the side of my face and my lips swelled up like Daffy Duck. Then not only is my skin itching but on the inside of my arms are burning, I thought ok this has to be a skin irritant, not a spontaneous food allergy (never been an issue for me whatsoever). So I thought, what would I have been wearing or using that would have done that? My laundry detergent has never bothered me in the slightest and now suddenly I have hives and a burning rash from it? I doubt it.. then I had this lightbulb moment where I remembered the Affresh tablets. I started going crazy doing load after load of laundry and scrubbing the white residue that was left in our washer from this product (yes I did do a cleaning cycle after I had used it, as instructed. At least 3 in fact) I was so frantic about wanting to get that stuff off my appliance so that I could wash my clothes in non toxic water and hopefully not feel like my skin was going to peel off. So like an idiot without gloves I began scrubbing (stupid, I know). A few hours later my hands were red, raw, swollen and felt like they had been dipped in acid. Not like in the picture I shared, much much worse. Then my lips doubled in size later that night AGAIN. I could have probably spared myself a lot of grief had I been smart enough to identify the problem sooner, who knows how long this stuff will take to wash out of my clothes, or if I even got every last but of it out of the washer. So please, do yourself a favor and run like 10 cleaning cycles after this stuff if you don't want to take the risk and find out you're allergic to it the hard way. Make sure there is no white residue in your machine, like in so many other people reviews. Wish I had gotten a picture of ours too before I scrubbed it off. EDIT: It's been 7 weeks now, I have to move into my moms house for a while. I keep having symptoms of anaphylaxis in addition to the hives getting worse every time I accidentally touch, wear, or sit on something that was washed after we used the Affresh tablets. I've soaked clothes in vinegar overnight multiple times and done like 20 hot washes. Some of it I'll have to get rid of completely, according to the allergist I've been seeing for this, some of those chemicals don't come out easily at all. With how sensitive I am he told me to basically quarantine everything and get a few new things for now if I can, just to give my body a break. I just want my life back, but I don't know how long it will be until we can afford to replace all our blankets bedding and clothes if we can't get the chemicals out. An allergy/sensitivity (when you've never been exposed before) takes 10-14 days to build it's defense system in your body before you see symptoms, mine began on about day 12. Everything pre-Affresh is safe and doesn't make me break out, so I know it was from this. Please please please be careful when using this stuff... or DIY a washing machine cleaner, it's very easy. I have never had an allergies or sensitive skin issues, this could happen to anyone. Almost 5 months later- still dealing with this. Fun fact, did you know a widespread chemical exposure such as this can cause something called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome? If only I could go back and not buy this stuff. When I say it ruined my life I'm not even exaggerating. Oh, and when I reached out to this wonderful company via a fb message, they weirdly had me send them a whole bunch of personal information like my phone number and my address and the serial number and info on the back of my washing machine. All I asked was if they knew what I could do to make sure that all the residue is out of the machine. They could have just said sorry they don't know. But nope.. they ask me for all this private info and have me move my washer so I could get the sticker info, then they call me and are super rude, "what is it exactly you're trying to get out of this?" was asked several times. Honestly I was so dumbstruck by the question and her tone that I didn't even know what to say. It took me until after the phone call to realize she must have thought I was threatening a lawsuit or something. As if I have the energy or the money to deal with all that. I was very nice to her, even though I was in tears. Literally all I wanted was advice about how to make sure I get the chemicals out of the washer. I never expected a call, a response to my message would have been enough. And a "we don't know" would have also been fine. Invading my privacy for no reason and then calling me with rude comments was super helpful. So thanks Affresh, you rock✌✌ I love telling all my friends and family about what a super stand up company you are. Update: almost 11 months since we used the Affresh, I still can't go into our closet for too long or leave the door open without my throat or lips swelling, same with the laundry room when my husband has just run his stuff through the dryer. I can't wear any of my old clothes, have spent over $1000 on organic cotton bedding and clothes just to steer clear of as many chemicals as possible. My husband started sleeping in another room since we haven't wanted to spend more on his bedding and clothes, but it's looking like we'll have to. I still can't fold his laundry or hug him without hives where my skin touches the fabric. I know it sounds insane, but it's been confirmed by my allergist that the Affresh was what started all of this, and that I now have Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. Which by the way can't be cured, I'll be sensitive to a lot of stuff now for the rest of my life. How a person can go from zero issues with sensitivities or allergic reactions, to this... from a chemical exposure, that's still a mystery to me. Maybe I was always doomed, with some underlying predisposition just waiting to be triggered. I hope more than anything that anyone reading this will be mindful of the world we live in. It's obviously unlikely you'll end up like me, and some people will roll their eyes- like my husband did before he helplessly watched this nightmare unfold, but I can promise you that everything you eat (pesticides, certain inactive ingredients in medication, preservatives..), wear (new clothes without washing well, detergent..) breathe (candles, smoking..), and plenty of other things I couldn't possibly begin to list, can hurt you. It just happens really slowly for most people, without them even knowing that all the choices they make are contributing to aging, immune dysfunction, disease, cancer.. Just look at other countries where many ingredients in food and household items are actually banned, where they eat better, move more, use "clean" products.. it makes a difference. People like me (who have MCAS) have been often called the "canaries in the coal mine", just let that sink in for a minute. I hope that at the very least, the worst thing to ever happen to me, might make a positive difference in other people lives. Please, don't forget.
Sort by:
Filter by:
By -
Verified Amazon Purchase
Vine Customer Review of Free Product
Sorry, no reviews match your current selections.
Try clearing or changing some filters.Show all reviews
Show more reviews