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Is HE Turbo detergent better in high-efficiency washing machines?

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If you've bought a bottle of laundry detergent in the past decade, you've probably noticed that it featured a small logo with the letters "HE" in lowercase. That logo means detergent is safe for use in high efficiency washing machines, which use less water than traditional machines.
What you probably didn't realize is that an HE logo doesn't necessarily mean much. In fact, some detergents bearing the HE logo are simply traditional detergents that the manufacturer has determined won't harm a high efficiency washer.

This is the new face of HE Turbo, a new detergent formulation from Procter and Gamble.

Despite the HE logo, this detergent isn't specifically formulated for high efficiency machines.

These fabric strips are coated in (from left to right) cocoa, red wine, blood, carbon, and sweat. On the top is the strip we cleaned with traditional detergent. On the bottom is the strip we cleaned with HE Turbo.
We measured stain removal with a photo spectrometer and found that clothes got nearly 4 percent closer to pure white thanks to HE Turbo when compared to a leading brand of HE-compatible detergent. When it comes to stain removal, that's a significant amount. The difference was even visible to the naked eye.
Should you buy HE Turbo detergent? It depends. If your high efficiency washer isn't living up to expectations, by all means try HE Turbo. That's especially true if your washer says a cycle should take 45 minutes and leaves you waiting for over an hour.
But if you're still washing with a traditional top-loader, save your money—and save it for a more efficient machine. Not only will it cut your utility bills, our tests show that a more efficient machine will likely do a better job cleaning clothes.