Although people commonly refer to laundry detergent as "soap," it is actually a synthetic combination that functions much like soap, with certain major improvements. Soap cleans because each soap molecule consists of a hydrocarbon chain and a carboxylic group (fatty acids) that perform two important functions. read more
The original Tide laundry detergent was a synthetic designed specifically for heavy-duty, machine cleaning (an advance over the milder cleaning capabilities of FeWA and Dreft). Tide was first introduced in U.S. test markets in 1946 as the world's first heavy-duty detergent, with nationwide distribution accomplished in 1949. read more