Tide with Febreeze Freshness Sport Wash

A couple of years ago I posted on this blog about Penguin Sport Wash and WIN detergent.  They are specialty laundry detergents for washing your smelly sports apparel.  I found them both to be very good products, but a little expensive.  About 3 months ago, I saw that Tide had a new "sports wash" with Febreeze.  It is supposed to clean your stinky, sweaty sports clothes better than regular detergents.  It was cheaper than Penguin or WIN, so I decided to give it a try.

Tide with Febreeze Sports Wash does seem to get my running clothes clean and it leaves them with a "fresh sport scent" that some people might enjoy.  I don't particularly like the scent, but it's not terrible.  Certainly better than the nasty, sweaty, musty scent that running gear can acquire.  Unfortunately, the freshness doesn't seem to last.  After a run, the regular sweat smell returns.  This new Tide may clean stains well, but I don't think it does a good job of really getting out embedded odors.  I'd advise people to pay the extra money and go with a real sports detergent like Penguin Sport Wash or WIN.  After searching Amazon for related products, I found several that look promising:

Penguin Sport Wash
WIN High Performance Sport Detergent
Atsko Sport Laundry Detergent
Prowash Activewear Detergent
Sport Suds
Double Clean Detergent

With the above 6 products, there is no reason to run with stinky clothes!  I've tried Penguin and WIN and highly recommend them, but I haven't used the other products.  After I finish up my "special" Tide, I'll try one of the other specialty detergents. Maybe I should just use the Tide for my regular clothes and be done with it.  There just may be something to the claim that these special sports washes actually get out embedded odors and leave no residue.  They are marketed at people that use technical fabric apparel in their sporting lives...I suppose that's us runners!  You and your family will thank me after you give one of these specialty detergents a try...you'll have cleaner and fresher clothes that may "bounce back" to their original sporting properties.  And there are no perfumes in these detergents to cover-up bad odors, they actually wash away the dirt, sweat, and bacteria that cause the odors in the first place.  If you wash your "regular" clothes separate from your "running" clothes, then the extra laundry detergent cost really isn't that much.

When I searched for these type of products 2 years ago, I didn't find much.  Now I easily found six.  There must be a market for them.  I imagine they all work better then normal laundry detergents.  I plan on trying them and I'll post reviews in a few months. If you've tried them, let me know.  Thanks.