A friend of mine recently brought over a couple of loads of laundry to process in the Neptunes here.  He brought a bottle of Era with him. 

I for some reason had associated Era with dollar stores, but I think that's wrong.  It wasn't as thick as Oxy-Clean, but didn't seem any thinner than Persil, either.   I'm curious about this now, as I thought I was imagining his scent still being on the clothes after washing (he's hairy and runs hot).  Maybe it wasn't my imagination after all?

Like Purex, Arm&Hammer are usually poor buys and not nearly as effective as the more expensive national brands.

You are usually better off with the better store brands than these cheap national brands, the store brands like Costco care much more quality than brands like ERA.

John L.

You basically never get a good buy with nationally advertised products [ You Are Paying For The Ads ] and these cheaper nationally advertised brands are usually the worst products.

John L.

Ken,

  I feel the same way. Era is the only detergent I've ever used first at home growing up and then on my own. I always saw it as a quality product too. I remember the commercials from being a kid where they showed it's stain fighting power by writing the word ERA 'with' Era in a squeeze botle on the stain and rinsing it out under the tap so that the letters stood out fresh and clean on the dirty grease stain.

I haven't paid attention to the viscosity or noticed a difference recently, that doesn't mean there isn't a true change. I've noticed it's sometimes harder to find in stores though.

I'm enough of a fan that I bought this circa 1970 something bottle of Era as gift for my 806 Maytag last year. If you look at the measurement recommendations on the back it shows how things have changed from back then at any rate.

Steve,

  Good question. I have wondered about that myself, whether you could use 40 year old liquid detergent and still have it properly clean your clothes.

I never actually tried it out,  though I've considered experimenting. However I think it's a lost cause in this case.

The bottled Era is probably very much like Laundress' Wisk description (though it's hard to actually see down inside it) in that it seems separated and partially congealed. You can tip it and pour a bit out easily but what comes out is very thin and watery, though still tinted the right color rather than clear, which makes me believe the mass of it is mostly globbed up sitting on the bottom .

It actually does still have a weak scent, it doesn't remind me of current Era but the smell that is there seems off, a little bit musty from age/deterioration I guess. Definitely not a clean fresh smell you'd want on your best dress shirt or polyester pantsuit

I can't speak for clothing detergent but I do know that some dish detergents (kind of) hold up. I found an old bottle of Ivory Liquid Dish Soap at an antique store a couple years ago, the label was the  late 70's early 80's iteration and when you squeeze it and the scent comes through the lid.. ahhhhhh. Takes me back to being a little kid.

Just for the heck of it I tried it in the sink, I had some plastic and ceramic items that were dusty or dirty, it wasn't anything that would be eaten off of, just things that needed cleaned up, so I figured it didn't matter. The soap sudsed up perfectly and the plastic got that squeak to it once it was rinsed, the way it does with soap in general. I can't say it cleaned it as efficiently, or cut grease, or all of the things chemically stable detergent should, but I was surprised on all counts. It even made my hands look like my teenaged daughters just like in the ads. Well, maybe not that last part.

Laundress, that's really interesting. Something I didn't really know about stains... I remember those print ads too with the 'stain specific' squeeze bottle calligraphy.

.... I have no real answer to the question but I do have a theory.......

Ken,

  I realized from this thread that I haven't purchased a new container of Era since a little over a year ago. The store had the 11 gallon jugs (with the handy dispenser spout) on sale and I bought four because of the great deal. So I've been using from that stockpile for the past 12 months I guess. So if there had been a recent change it dawned on me that I wouldn't know about it either way.

I just finished off the last jug from that haul so I needed to restock anyway, and purchased a new one the other day. It looked exactly the same as always in the store but when I got it home and in the laundry room next to the older jug I noticed a big difference. The measuring cap was roughly a 3rd larger than the one I had previously.

Oddly though the measurement markers were different on it, they appeared smaller, so this was confusing to me, why make the cap bigger but the measurements smaller? But then I wondered, were they only smaller looking, because the cap was larger and the actual volume was really the same as before?

I played Mr. Wizard with some colored water and the measuring caps, thinking I'd prove that hypothesis, but instead came away with more questions initially.

****First, an explanation.. these jugs are ridiculously handy for storing water. I live in a rural area on well water and when the power goes out so does your well pump, so you can be without water for hours or days. These (after being  thoroughly rinsed) can hold clean (non drinking) backup water for washing hands from that handy dispenser spout, or pouring from the screw top spout in to a small bucket so that you can "overflow bowl flush" your toilet. So I've saved and used and reused these jugs for years. Because of that... I just happened to have the much older jug mentioned below****

When I noticed the difference between the two measuring cups I looked through my back stock of  Era jugs and found one even older. I noticed it's cap was different also and so I decided to put it into my test field as well. The jugs each had a copyright year on the back label. the oldest one reads 2012, the most recent 2018, and the middle jug 2016.  In the pics the differences are pretty obvious between 2016 and 2018 with the more recent being at least a fourth to a third larger. 2012 and 2016 seem different at first, particularly the measurement markings, but because 2012 is more conical than cylindrical (skinnier at the bottom) I figured this was likely just a difference in aesthetics and not actual volume.

I decided to see what the difference was between cap measurements. I knew water would be easier to deal with as it is thinner and does not coat the sides and lose as much of it's contents between each vessel the way the detergent would. I colored it "Era" blue to show up better.

•Line 1, Using the 2012 cap as a control I first filled it to line 1, then poured that into the 2016 cap. The water level was more or less spot on in the 2016 cap at line 1 also. The 2018 cap was different.. instead of being under the line it actually was roughly one third above it, basically at line 2.

The next tests (not pictured) were similar...

•Line 2 measurement stayed consistent  between the 2012 and 2016 caps again (the 2012 cap line 2 marker is on the opposite side from what pictures show) , but the 2018 cap had filled well past line 2 and had actually filled halfway between line 3 and line 4.

•Line 3, yet again, stayed consistent between 2012 and 2016 but filled the 2018 cap to it's line 4.

*** The 2012 cap did not have a line 4 or 5 and so I stopped using it for testing at this point.

***Because I knew already from my previous experiment that line 4 on the 2018 cap was already inconsistent with the 2016 cap I did not compare these either.

•Line 5, Using only the 2016 cap as the base, when transferred to the 2018 cap  line 5 stayed consistent between both caps contrary to all the other measurements for 2018.

Confusing at first, but later made sense.. but first.

I next compared the actual jugs (Picture 2) the front labels are virtually identical from 2012 to 2018 the wording (such as the stain fighting disclaimer and caution statement) is the same, the logo the same, the measurement volume the same, colors the same as well. The only real difference being the HE emblem changing slightly from 2012 to 2016 and then the shape of the label widening from 2016 to 2018, but both things only really noticeable when compared side by side by side.

The first obvious difference was in the actual shape of the jugs, the 2012 and 2016 jugs were identical, the exact same mold. But the 2018 jug was a an updated design, very similar to before but had definite changes.. slightly taller and also now tapered at the bottom making it slightly wider too. Obviously the dispenser spout area was changed to accommodate the larger lid to clamp on and I noticed that front to back it was slightly wider there as well.. the spout mechanism stayed the same though.

The back labels varied the most, understandably. and the oddities between the 2018 cap began to make more sense.

•The 2012 cap, despite saying on it's front that it worked with HE machines had no direct measuring reference for HE machines. It designates line 1 for Medium loads and line 2 for Large loads, Line 3 is not designated at all but I'm guessing it was intended for HE loads.

•The 2016 cap keeps line 1 as it's Medium measurement but now recommends line 3 for Large loads and Line 5 for HE Full Loads.

•The 2018 cap though throws most of that for a loop, Line 2 is now for Medium Loads, Line 4 for large loads and Line 5 staying as the HE Full load measurement.

Despite those changes in dosing numbers.... my blue water experiment shows that the 'volume' itself more or less actually stayed consistent because 2018's Medium Large and HE load designation stayed consistent with 2016's in volume.. they just assigned new cap numbers to those amounts on the 2018 cap. 2016's line 1 was equal to 2018's line 2 in volume just as 2018's line 4 was equal to the previous line 3 volume from 2016.

So that means two things I guess, 1. that the recommended measurements have stayed consistent since 2012 and 2. that all of us unsuspecting Era consumers who had no clue of Era's dosing changes are initially using half as much detergent as they should if they go by the actual measure lines on the caps... until we realize it's not doing what it should be.

Personally... I would not have noticed it myself if I had not purposely been looking for differences. If I hadn't purposely sat the two jugs side by side to notice the caps for example, I would have just opened it and poured it in like always.

As I mentioned they didn't change the front label at all.. there's no notice of the measurement changes, they didn't make a note about the cap or jug redesign with a catchy disclaimer of "New Look.. Same Great Clean!" or something that might call your attention to it.

I would NEVER have thought to look at the back label on my own, to see the new measurement guidelines. I would have placed the jug where the old one had sat previously, opened it up and went on using the cap measurements as always. Until I realized it was weak and started doubling up on it in the same way.

I've been out of the loop (in buying it) for a year so you may already know about the measurement changes... so this doesn't answer your question necessarily but might be helpful to others who land here.