Trust Pink. Forget Stains. Vanish are the self proclaimed No.1 world's best selling stain remover. But are their claims always as white as you expect your clothes to be?
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Recently the makers launched a new ad - with miraculous claims about its ability to remove marks from fabric - but do these claims stand up? Watchdog decided to find out...
Watchdog viewers' responses
Hello,
I am another disappointed Varnish oxy powder customer and emailed them to say that it does not work on cotton baby clothes stained by baby food (which isn't dried on!) the company who make vanish ignored me and I wasn't able to get the stains out or my money back!!
Anonymous
A recent Vanish advert portrays a typical scenario, and something mothers across the country will no doubt be familiar with, a stained football shirt in the washing basket the day before a big game, how will she get all the stains out in time? Well, she need not fear, as a Vanish representative is on hand to tell her she can rely on Vanish Oxi Action to remove tough stains. We watch as the football shirt is dropped into a tank of water, one scoop of Vanish Oxi Action is added and a short time later the football shirt is pulled out looking as good as new. The advert continues, "Guaranteed to remove tough stains 1st time guaranteed or your money back."
Bold claims from the makers of Vanish, tough stains removed first time guaranteed, but does it work? Not according to one football team.
Peter Littlefield manages AFC Hillside, a Sunday league team based in Portsmouth. When he saw the advert he decided to wash his whole teams' brand new kit using Vanish Oxi Action. He followed the instructions on the side of the tub, soaking the kit in the product before putting it in the washing machine with his normal detergent. Peter also added an extra scoop of Vanish to the wash to make sure his teams kit came out looking like new. However, Peter did not get the results he was hoping for, so he repeated the process twice more, but each time the kit came out, the stains remained.
Now, old-fashioned footballers mightn't have cared about a bit of muck, but the modern player wants to look and feel his best out on the pitch.
AFC Hillside were not impressed with their kits after they'd been through the wash. They told us:
"Everyone wants a clean kit. Don't want to come on the pitch with a dirty kit. Want to look smart, go out there and win our games."
So, while the makers of Vanish clearly imply that a scoop of Oxi Action powder will clean the dried-in mud from a football shirt - it just doesn't seem to be happening with this team. But will it work on other kits? Watchdog decided to find out.
We took a polyester football shirt and stained it with coffee, red wine and the classic football stain, mud. We followed the instructions on the side of the tub advising on how to get the best results, soaking the football shirt for 6 hours in 4 litres of water with one scoop of Vanish. When the time was up, we rubbed the stains and then washed as normal with a leading washing powder brand - and plenty of it - at 40 degrees. And the results... Well, the coffee and red wine stains were removed but light mud staining still remained.
We also did the same test with a cotton T-shirt, where it became clear that Vanish does not work as well on cotton as it does polyester. Our cotton T-shirt came out with remnants of coffee and clear mud staining still visible, and they're the results after soaking for 6 hours. What happens if you haven't got the time to do that? Well Vanish have another suggestion, they advise that just one scoop of their Oxi Action powder added to your normal detergent should do the trick just as well, so we thought we'd give it a go.
Again, we took two stained items, a polyester football shirt and a cotton T-shirt and washed them separately, this time adding our Oxi Action powder to our detergent. Again, the coffee and red wine stain came out of our polyester football shirt but the mud stain failed to budge. However, the Vanish appeared to barely have any affect on our cotton T-shirt, leaving traces of the coffee and red wine stains, as well as heavy mud stains. So not a great result at all, Vanish didn't perform well and it certainly didn't live up to its tough stains removed first time promise.
Now, it seems a bit strange that Vanish can suggest that their Oxi-Action powder will remove tough stains, like mud, when clearly it doesn't. But maybe it's just us. We need an expert opinion and who better than Vince Mitchell, a professor of consumer marketing, to offer us one.
Vince's take on the advert is simple - he recognises that it does propose the problem of getting rid of mud stains from a football kit first time, and he goes on to say that the advert reinforces this using images of the woman treating the shirt and then holding up the item with the stain removed after the first wash. Vince also notes that the Vanish representative tells us the product removes tough stains first time, and we are offered a money back guarantee. Vince says:
"There's no way that you could misunderstand that this should be first-time stain removal."
So the ad does clearly imply that Vanish should vanish stains and leave your clothes nice and clean, but in reality it's not that easy...
We also repeated the tests on coloured polyester shirts and although these faired a little better, we still didn't get the great results Vanish promised. Our coloured polyester shirt, soaked for one hour in Vanish and then washed in the machine with normal detergent, got the best results, completely removing the coffee and red wine stains and leaving only traces of mud staining behind. The coloured polyester shirt that was washed with a scoop of Oxi Action, again came out looking cleaner than its white comparison, with only faint mud staining remaining on the garment.
Vanish response
VANISH OXI ACTION STAIN REMOVER POWDER:
We are sorry that Mr Littlefield and his team were disappointed with the results they had in removing all the stains from their kit.
Vanish is the number one stain removal brand and is used regularly and successfully by more than 8 million UK households. Our relationship with our users is very important to us and we do the best we can to provide great products that can be used with confidence.
Our own tests show that Vanish Oxi Action is effective - first time - on a wide variety of stains. However, we acknowledge that some tough staining may need pre-treatment, for example soaking at 400, or more than one application for the best results.
Vanish does not agree that this ad, which ran during the summer season, from June to the end of August this year, was in any way misleading. On the contrary, the demonstration clearly focused on the effectiveness of Vanish on grass stains, the most common problem at this time of year. Our confidence in the effectiveness of Vanish Oxi Action Powder was further underlined by the fact that the ad included a money back guarantee.
Our Consumer Services team has no record of any contact from Mr Littlefield about this complaint, nor did he take advantage of that offer.
Supplementary points:
- All TV adverts have to go through a very rigorous process before being accepted for broadcast, with evidence shown for any claims made.
- We work hard to make sure that claims for Vanish are clear and accurate. We are always looking at ways of improving how we communicate with our consumers. Recently we have introduced additional information on screen in all our advertising highlighting exactly what stains have been tested (eg red wine or chocolate pudding in recent examples). This particular ad was produced before that initiative started.
- Our Consumer Services team are there to help users if they have any questions or complaints. If Mr Littlefield had come to us we would have been able to deal with him one-to-one and hopefully resolve his problem for him.
- We are confident that grass stains should have been removed, although heavy staining might have required pre-soaking at 40 degrees.
- Mud was not the focus of this advertisement. Because of the many different soil types and the variation in depth of staining it is not possible to test comprehensively. Therefore while Vanish will shift many such stains, we do not claim first time success on mud-based staining for any of our products.
- Consumer satisfaction levels with Vanish performance are very high. This is demonstrated by the very low level of complaints received which total no more than 0.00319% of the volume of sales over the last 12 months.
Chris performs a vanishing act...
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.
Recently the makers launched a new ad - with miraculous claims about its ability to remove marks from fabric - but do these claims stand up? Watchdog decided to find out...
Watchdog viewers' responses
Hello,
I am another disappointed Varnish oxy powder customer and emailed them to say that it does not work on cotton baby clothes stained by baby food (which isn't dried on!) the company who make vanish ignored me and I wasn't able to get the stains out or my money back!!
Anonymous
A recent Vanish advert portrays a typical scenario, and something mothers across the country will no doubt be familiar with, a stained football shirt in the washing basket the day before a big game, how will she get all the stains out in time? Well, she need not fear, as a Vanish representative is on hand to tell her she can rely on Vanish Oxi Action to remove tough stains. We watch as the football shirt is dropped into a tank of water, one scoop of Vanish Oxi Action is added and a short time later the football shirt is pulled out looking as good as new. The advert continues, "Guaranteed to remove tough stains 1st time guaranteed or your money back."
Bold claims from the makers of Vanish, tough stains removed first time guaranteed, but does it work? Not according to one football team.
Peter Littlefield manages AFC Hillside, a Sunday league team based in Portsmouth. When he saw the advert he decided to wash his whole teams' brand new kit using Vanish Oxi Action. He followed the instructions on the side of the tub, soaking the kit in the product before putting it in the washing machine with his normal detergent. Peter also added an extra scoop of Vanish to the wash to make sure his teams kit came out looking like new. However, Peter did not get the results he was hoping for, so he repeated the process twice more, but each time the kit came out, the stains remained.
Now, old-fashioned footballers mightn't have cared about a bit of muck, but the modern player wants to look and feel his best out on the pitch.
AFC Hillside were not impressed with their kits after they'd been through the wash. They told us:
"Everyone wants a clean kit. Don't want to come on the pitch with a dirty kit. Want to look smart, go out there and win our games."
So, while the makers of Vanish clearly imply that a scoop of Oxi Action powder will clean the dried-in mud from a football shirt - it just doesn't seem to be happening with this team. But will it work on other kits? Watchdog decided to find out.
We took a polyester football shirt and stained it with coffee, red wine and the classic football stain, mud. We followed the instructions on the side of the tub advising on how to get the best results, soaking the football shirt for 6 hours in 4 litres of water with one scoop of Vanish. When the time was up, we rubbed the stains and then washed as normal with a leading washing powder brand - and plenty of it - at 40 degrees. And the results... Well, the coffee and red wine stains were removed but light mud staining still remained.
We also did the same test with a cotton T-shirt, where it became clear that Vanish does not work as well on cotton as it does polyester. Our cotton T-shirt came out with remnants of coffee and clear mud staining still visible, and they're the results after soaking for 6 hours. What happens if you haven't got the time to do that? Well Vanish have another suggestion, they advise that just one scoop of their Oxi Action powder added to your normal detergent should do the trick just as well, so we thought we'd give it a go.
Again, we took two stained items, a polyester football shirt and a cotton T-shirt and washed them separately, this time adding our Oxi Action powder to our detergent. Again, the coffee and red wine stain came out of our polyester football shirt but the mud stain failed to budge. However, the Vanish appeared to barely have any affect on our cotton T-shirt, leaving traces of the coffee and red wine stains, as well as heavy mud stains. So not a great result at all, Vanish didn't perform well and it certainly didn't live up to its tough stains removed first time promise.
Now, it seems a bit strange that Vanish can suggest that their Oxi-Action powder will remove tough stains, like mud, when clearly it doesn't. But maybe it's just us. We need an expert opinion and who better than Vince Mitchell, a professor of consumer marketing, to offer us one.
Vince's take on the advert is simple - he recognises that it does propose the problem of getting rid of mud stains from a football kit first time, and he goes on to say that the advert reinforces this using images of the woman treating the shirt and then holding up the item with the stain removed after the first wash. Vince also notes that the Vanish representative tells us the product removes tough stains first time, and we are offered a money back guarantee. Vince says:
"There's no way that you could misunderstand that this should be first-time stain removal."
So the ad does clearly imply that Vanish should vanish stains and leave your clothes nice and clean, but in reality it's not that easy...
We also repeated the tests on coloured polyester shirts and although these faired a little better, we still didn't get the great results Vanish promised. Our coloured polyester shirt, soaked for one hour in Vanish and then washed in the machine with normal detergent, got the best results, completely removing the coffee and red wine stains and leaving only traces of mud staining behind. The coloured polyester shirt that was washed with a scoop of Oxi Action, again came out looking cleaner than its white comparison, with only faint mud staining remaining on the garment.
Vanish response
VANISH OXI ACTION STAIN REMOVER POWDER:
We are sorry that Mr Littlefield and his team were disappointed with the results they had in removing all the stains from their kit.
Vanish is the number one stain removal brand and is used regularly and successfully by more than 8 million UK households. Our relationship with our users is very important to us and we do the best we can to provide great products that can be used with confidence.
Our own tests show that Vanish Oxi Action is effective - first time - on a wide variety of stains. However, we acknowledge that some tough staining may need pre-treatment, for example soaking at 400, or more than one application for the best results.
Vanish does not agree that this ad, which ran during the summer season, from June to the end of August this year, was in any way misleading. On the contrary, the demonstration clearly focused on the effectiveness of Vanish on grass stains, the most common problem at this time of year. Our confidence in the effectiveness of Vanish Oxi Action Powder was further underlined by the fact that the ad included a money back guarantee.
Our Consumer Services team has no record of any contact from Mr Littlefield about this complaint, nor did he take advantage of that offer.
Supplementary points:
- All TV adverts have to go through a very rigorous process before being accepted for broadcast, with evidence shown for any claims made.
- We work hard to make sure that claims for Vanish are clear and accurate. We are always looking at ways of improving how we communicate with our consumers. Recently we have introduced additional information on screen in all our advertising highlighting exactly what stains have been tested (eg red wine or chocolate pudding in recent examples). This particular ad was produced before that initiative started.
- Our Consumer Services team are there to help users if they have any questions or complaints. If Mr Littlefield had come to us we would have been able to deal with him one-to-one and hopefully resolve his problem for him.
- We are confident that grass stains should have been removed, although heavy staining might have required pre-soaking at 40 degrees.
- Mud was not the focus of this advertisement. Because of the many different soil types and the variation in depth of staining it is not possible to test comprehensively. Therefore while Vanish will shift many such stains, we do not claim first time success on mud-based staining for any of our products.
- Consumer satisfaction levels with Vanish performance are very high. This is demonstrated by the very low level of complaints received which total no more than 0.00319% of the volume of sales over the last 12 months.
Chris performs a vanishing act...