Looking for Canesten Hygiene Laundry Rinse (antifungal and antibacterial laundry detergent add-in) or clone in the USA

September 29, 2009 4:16 PM

Are there any similar products to Canesten Hygiene Laundry Rinse that I can purchase in the US (Fry's, Walmart, Albertsons, Safeway, Walgreens, CVS etc)

I'm an Aussie living in the US. Back in Oz we have this stuff called Canesten Hygiene Laundry Rinse - it's antifungal as well as antibacterial, which is a fantastic idea when you consider the concept of washing your stinky socks or sweaty underwear or pillowcases with an antifungal agent added to the regular laundry detergent. I hunted for a clone of this in several major retail supermarkets in the US to no avail. When I asked some people at work, they all unanimously said that they'd use bleach for the purpose. Is that the final answer or is there something similar to Canesten that I can use? Or can I get Canesten Rinse cheaply via mailorder here, rather than the old man blowing fifty bucks a pop to send me two containers across the pond every few months? I don't want to use bleach because I've read that it doesn't actually kill fungus. Plus, I value the integrity of my clothing's colour.

Alternate solutions welcome, as long as it doesn't involve squeezing a tube of miconazole into the wash each time..

FWIW I'm in Phoenix.

posted by tra to home & garden (9 comments total)

Active ingredient is benzalkonium chloride. There may be limitations about releasing this into a US water supply in any great quantity - it's very harmful to fish.
posted by scruss at 4:46 PM on September 29

Benzalkonium chloride - the active ingredient in the laundry rinse (@ 7% w/v) - is also used as a pool disinfectant (@ ~50% w/v).

(FWIW, I'm in Aus, & I'd never seen the stuff until I noticed a bottle on my gf's table this morning...)
posted by Pinback at 4:49 PM on September 29

Lysol Disinfectant Concentrate. Add one cup to each load of laundry.

On their FAQ page, click Lysol Disinfectant Spray FAQs to see a list of the viruses, bacteria, and fungi that it kills (#5 in that section). Click the Lysol All Purpose Cleaner FAQs to see what they say about laundry (#1 in that section) -- notably, to use the concentrate version and not the pourable version.

This won't be in the laundry aisle of the store. It will be in the all-purpose cleaners section.
posted by Houstonian at 5:03 PM on September 29

That's a weird site you link to that claims that hypochlorite bleach cannot kill fungus, apparently on the grounds that it contains water, while at the same time insisting that dilute vinegar does a much better job of killing mold. Don't trust what they have to say there. Your benzalkonium chloride solution contains a lot of water, too, but that doesn't keep it from killing fungus. Hypochlorite kills fungi at a concentration of 100 parts per million. Of course it will also damage any clothing made of silk, wool, spandex, polyester, nylon, or most other synthetic fibers.

Another good laundry disinfectant is pine oil, found in Pine Sol and some other brands of household cleaners. It's good for adding to the wash if you have smelly towels.
posted by Ery at 5:29 PM on September 29

Look for products with tea tree oil in them (meleleuca alternifolia). It is antifungal, environmentally safe and abundantly available in Australia.
posted by Wendy BD at 9:30 AM on September 30

Oops. You are in the States now. Never fear, it is available there too.
posted by Wendy BD at 9:31 AM on September 30

Interesting stuff!

I use Tide with Bleach, and add 1/4 cup vinegar to soften the water... Never had to worry about fungi in clothes.... I would think also hanging them in the sunshine would kill a lot of yuck... UV-C is awesome at that!

I have a friend who is battling ringworm in her cattery right now. She is using Selsun Blue to wash the kitties, it is an anti-fungal. Also Lotrimin lotion for ringworm...

Other than that, wash hot, dry long, beat the bugs with heat!
posted by Jinx of the 2nd Law at 3:27 PM on September 30

Houstonian FTW. Thank you, and thanks to everyone who replied.

I have another couple of containers of Canesten en route from Oz, but they'll be my last now. The Lysol solution (no pun intended) sounds like the go.

scruss: Considering that I use about a thimbleful of the stuff every two weeks and I'm probably the only person in AZ that actually possesses any Canesten, I'm going to assume that that's not a significant amount of leakage into the water supply. Then again, Phoenix's water is absolutely disgusting anyway - barely a step up from the third world.

Wendy: Oil? Hm.

Jinx: We don't have a clothesline, and while there's plentiful amounts of sunlight in this State, I'm not interested in birds shitting on my laundry, and hot water and long dryer cycles damage clothing over time. Chemical solution works best for me but thanks anyway!
posted by tra at 1:06 PM on October 1

Epilogue: Canesten showed up today, along with 3 containers of MediPulv (something else you apparently can't get a clone of Stateside). But no need for another AskMefi question about - three containers of the stuff will last probably the rest of my life. Seacrest out.
posted by tra at 6:12 PM on October 14