Garden Last updated · owner ratings verified July 2026
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Side by side
| Our pick Persil ProClean Liquid Plus Oxi Power, 100 fl oz (4-pack) Best detergent $50–75 Check price | Persil Ultra Pacs Advanced Clean Oxi+Odor, 57 count $18–28 Check price | OxiClean White Revive Laundry Whitener Powder Best whitener $10–20 Check price | OxiClean White Revive Liquid Stain Remover, 40 loads $8–16 Check price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What owners rate it | ||||
| Owner rating | 4.7 / 5 (1,113) | 4.8 / 5 (558) | 4.7 / 5 (46,087) | 4.5 / 5 (1,543) |
| Specifications | ||||
| What it is | Full detergent with oxi booster | Full detergent, single dose | Booster and whitener, not a detergent | Booster and pre-treat |
| Form | Liquid | Pacs | Powder | Liquid |
| Oxygen bleach | Yes, oxi additives | Yes, oxi plus odor tech | Yes, sodium percarbonate | Yes, peroxide-based |
| Enzymes | Yes, multi-enzyme | Yes, multi-enzyme | Minimal | Minimal |
| Loads per pack | About 64 loads per bottle | 57 loads | Varies by scoop; large tubs cover many loads | 40 loads |
| Cold water performance | Strong in cold water | Strong in cold water | Weak in cold, needs warm water | Works in cold, weaker than powder |
| HE washer | HE compatible | HE compatible | HE compatible | HE compatible |
| Who it suits | ||||
| Best for | a household that wants one detergent to handle everything | anyone who over-pours liquid detergent | grayed, dingy or yellowed whites that detergent alone will not fix | pre-treating collars, cuffs and underarm stains |
Ratings are aggregated Amazon owner ratings, not our own testing. Figures verified July 2026.
Pros and cons
ProClean Liquid Plus Oxi Power, 100 fl oz (4-pack)
- Enzyme package is among the strongest in mainstream American detergents on protein and body-soil stains
- Works genuinely well in cold water, which most oxygen boosters do not
- Oxi additives give it real whitening ability without a separate booster
- Buying four bottles at once brings the cost per load down close to store-brand levels
- Strongly scented, and reviewers with sensitivities say so repeatedly
- Large up-front spend for a four-bottle pack
- Over-dosing is easy with a big cap and causes residue on dark clothes
Ultra Pacs Advanced Clean Oxi+Odor, 57 count
- Pre-measured dosing removes the single most common laundry mistake
- Rated 4.8 with owners, the highest score in this comparison
- Combines oxi whitening and odor technology in one dose
- No drips, no measuring cap, no sticky bottle shelf
- Pacs cost more per load than liquid bought in a four-pack
- Cannot be split for a small or delicate load
- Must be stored well out of reach of children — the CPSC has been explicit about pod ingestion risk
White Revive Laundry Whitener Powder
- Sodium percarbonate releases oxygen bleach in water — the mechanism that actually lifts gray out of cotton
- Rated 4.7 across an enormous owner base, one of the deepest records in laundry care
- Safe on colors and on most synthetics, unlike chlorine bleach
- Soaking is where it shines: a few hours in warm water on a white shirt is genuinely transformative
- Not a detergent — it has almost no cleaning surfactant and must be used with one
- Needs warm or hot water to activate properly; it underperforms badly in cold
- Powder does not dissolve well in short cold cycles and can leave residue
White Revive Liquid Stain Remover, 40 loads
- Dissolves instantly, so it works in cold cycles where the powder struggles
- Doubles as a targeted pre-treat straight onto a stain
- Cheapest product in this comparison per bottle
- Rated 4.5, below the powder, with weaker whitening the recurring theme
- Liquid oxygen bleach is less concentrated than powder for the same job
- Still not a detergent — you are buying two products either way
Decision factors
What you actually pay
Cost per load is the only fair way to compare these, because the pack sizes are wildly different. Persil ProClean liquid bought as a four-pack of 100 oz bottles works out to roughly 20–28 cents a load. Persil Ultra Pacs land nearer 32–45 cents. OxiClean White Revive powder is around 15–25 cents a scoop depending on tub size, and the liquid is similar. A store-brand detergent runs 10–15 cents, so Persil sits at a genuine premium.
What the Persil premium buys is enzymes. Detergent cost is driven by enzyme loading — protease, amylase, lipase and mannanase — and Persil carries one of the heavier packages in the mainstream American market. That is what handles body soil, food and grass on a cold wash, and it is why owners who switch to it from a value brand notice the difference on collars and workout clothes rather than on general dirt. If you wash mostly lightly soiled clothing in warm water, a cheaper detergent will do fine and the premium is wasted.
The honest total is both products, not one. A household serious about whites spends roughly $0.25 a load on detergent plus $0.20 on a booster used maybe once a week — call it $8–12 a month for a family. That is still less than replacing grayed shirts. The bigger money question is water temperature: warm and hot washes cost real energy, and the US Department of Energy notes that heating water accounts for the large majority of a washing machine’s energy use. OxiClean powder needs warm water to work properly, so a whites cycle costs more to run than a cold colors cycle — worth doing weekly rather than daily.
Which one fits you
- Buying one product for the whole household Persil ProClean Plus Oxi Power It is a complete detergent with oxi whitening built in; OxiClean on its own cannot wash clothes.
- Whites that have already gone gray or yellow OxiClean White Revive powder An oxygen-bleach soak is the mechanism that actually reverses graying, and no detergent dose matches it.
- Washes almost everything in cold Persil Ultra Pacs Strong cold-water performance and pre-measured dosing, where the OxiClean powder underperforms in cold.
- Collars, cuffs and underarm stains specifically OxiClean White Revive liquid Applies directly to the stain as a pre-treat and dissolves instantly, unlike the powder.
If neither is right
- Tide Powder Laundry Detergent, Original Powder detergents carry more oxygen-bleach-friendly builders than liquids and rate exceptionally well with owners — the strongest single-product answer for whites if you wash warm.
- Arm & Hammer Clean Burst Liquid Detergent Roughly half the cost per load of Persil with a very large and very positive owner record. The sensible choice if your laundry is lightly soiled.
- Tide Liquid Laundry Detergent, Original The default American detergent for a reason, and a direct alternative to Persil for anyone who finds Persil’s fragrance too strong.
Which should you buy?
If you can only buy one, buy Persil. It is a full detergent and OxiClean is not — White Revive contains almost no cleaning surfactant and cannot wash clothes on its own, no matter how bright it makes them look. But if your problem is specifically whites that have already gone gray or yellow, OxiClean White Revive powder is the product that fixes it, and no amount of extra detergent will do the same job. The realistic answer for most households is Persil in the dispenser and a tub of White Revive on the shelf for a weekly whites load.
Why is this not really a head-to-head?
Because they attack different problems. Detergent works by surfactancy and enzymes: surfactants lift oil and soil off fibers so water can carry them away, and enzymes break down specific stain classes — protease for protein, amylase for starch, lipase for fats. Persil carries one of the heavier enzyme loadings on the American market, which is why it performs unusually well in cold water where enzyme activity normally drops.
Oxygen bleach works chemically on the discoloration itself. Sodium percarbonate dissolves into hydrogen peroxide and soda ash, and the peroxide oxidizes the colored compounds that make white cotton look gray. It does not remove much soil. That distinction explains why a shirt can come out of a Persil wash technically clean and still look dull, and why an OxiClean soak fixes the look but not the smell.
The practical upshot: if your whites are dirty, that is a detergent problem. If your whites are clean but dingy, that is an oxygen-bleach problem. Diagnosing which one you actually have saves a lot of money.
Which is better for cold washing?
Persil, clearly, and it is one of the few genuine reasons to pay a premium for detergent. Cold-water performance is enzyme-driven, and Persil is formulated for it. OxiClean powder is the opposite: percarbonate needs warmth to release peroxide at a useful rate, and in a short cold cycle a scoop of powder may not even fully dissolve, leaving white residue on dark items.
If your household washes everything cold on principle, there are two workable routes. Use the OxiClean liquid, which dissolves instantly and works acceptably at lower temperatures, or run one warm whites load a week and keep everything else cold. The second is what most people who care about whites end up doing, and it is also the cheaper option, because water heating dominates a washer’s energy use.
How do the brands differ beyond formula?
Persil is a Henkel brand with a European heritage and an American formulation, sold across every major grocery and big-box chain. Its line-up is broad and consistently well rated, and the ProClean and Ultra Pacs lines are the two most relevant here. Its recurring weakness in reviews is fragrance strength: it is a heavily scented detergent, and people sensitive to scent say so loudly and often.
OxiClean is a Church and Dwight brand and its line-up is confusing on purpose — there is a Versatile formula, a White Revive formula, a Max Force spray, powders and liquids of each. For whites specifically you want White Revive, and the powder rather than the liquid if you can wash warm. The brand’s strength is that its core product does exactly one thing extremely well and has an enormous owner record behind it.
How should you actually wash whites?
The routine matters more than which of these two products you buy, and most people are undermining themselves in one of four ways.
Wash whites separately. This is not fussiness — it is the single biggest cause of dinginess. Every colored garment sheds a small amount of dye, and white cotton picks it up load after load until it reads as gray. One separate whites load a week fixes more than any product.
Do not overload the drum. Clothes need room to move for water and detergent to reach the fibers. A packed washer produces the same gray result as a weak detergent, and it is a far more common problem in HE machines that use very little water.
Pre-treat before you soak. Underarm yellowing is usually aluminum from antiperspirant bonding with body oil, and collar grime is body oil and skin. Both need direct application — the OxiClean liquid or a spray — and ten to fifteen minutes before the garment goes in. A whole-load booster cannot concentrate itself where you need it.
Use warm water for the whites load. Oxygen bleach chemistry needs it, and this is the one load a week where the energy cost is justified. Then dry whites in sunlight if you can: ultraviolet light is a genuinely effective, free bleach on cotton, and it is what generations of households relied on before any of these products existed.
What do owners complain about?
Residue is the most common OxiClean complaint and it is almost always undissolved powder from a cold or short cycle. Dissolve the scoop in a cup of hot water first and add the solution to the drum — that single habit removes most one-star reviews in this category.
Fragrance dominates Persil criticism. It is not a fault so much as a formulation choice, but anyone with sensitivity should look at a free-and-clear option instead. Over-dosing is the other Persil theme: the cap is generous, HE washers use very little water, and excess detergent leaves a film that traps odor — which people then blame on the detergent. Our guide on why clothes still smell after washing covers that loop.
The complaint that spans both brands is expecting one product to do everything. Reviews that say a detergent “did not whiten” are usually about a booster job, and reviews that say a booster “did not clean” are about a detergent job. Getting whites right takes the right pair, warm water, and washing them separately from colors.
The bottom line
Persil is the better single purchase because it is a complete detergent with real cold-water strength and built-in oxi whitening. OxiClean White Revive is the better whitener and the product that actually rescues clothes already past the point a detergent can fix. Buy Persil for the machine and White Revive for the soak, wash whites warm once a week, and the yellowing problem largely disappears. Rankings come from aggregated owner ratings and expert consensus rather than first-hand testing — see how we rank.
More from this hub: best laundry detergent for whites · best stain remover for laundry · best cold water detergent · laundry stain removal guide · what temperature to wash towels.