I would like to clarify a point arising from an article in the November edition of your magazine, concerning the availability of disinfecting laundry powders in the UK.

We feel we should remind your readers that P&G Professional have been selling Professional Ariel Hygiene Antibac, which is a disinfecting laundry powder, in the away-from-home (or “professional”) marketplace in the UK since January 2000.

From its launch, Professional Ariel Hygiene Antibac has offered care homes and other users Log 5 reduction in germs at temperatures as low as 30°C. In addition, it meets the standards for disinfecting level cleaning as defined by the Committee for European Norms (CEN test EN1276 Log 5 Antibacterial activity proved at 30°C, 9min contact time, 9g/l usage).

Killing germs is definitely a subject of interest to laundry professionals. Care homes using Professional Ariel rated germkill as the most important product attribute of a laundry brand in a telephone survey last year. Hundreds of care home launderers using a variety of brands ranked hygiene second only to whiteness as an important attribute of a laundry detergent in their response to a postal questionnaire over the summer.

For further information, readers may wish to receive a complementary copy of the booklet “Laundry hygiene: your professional reference guide”, which we have produced in conjunction with Grahame Gardner uniforms. To receive it, call free on 0800 716854.

Rüdiger Gottschalk Head of marketing P&G Professional