Consumer Visual Experiences during Washing

Background

Globally, detergency R&D efforts try to improve the consumer experiences that laundry products are able to create during laundry. In line with that approach, all aspects related with actual consumer visual experiences will play a critical role in the coming years.

Consumer visual experiences not only involve visual perceptions of washing results, i.e. fabric cleanliness and whiteness perception after the washing process, they also include visual perceptions of products and product-fabric interaction which occurs upstream in the consumer experience: at purchasing, at the start of the use, and during dissolution and early interaction with soiled fabrics. Some regional markets are more susceptible in this area than others, specially those characterised by a close interaction between consumer and garments during washing, like the African, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern laundry markets.

A mini non-contact spectrofluorimetry system developed by DETERTEC in 2005 was adapted to measure radiance coming from a white fabrics immersed, during a soaking or a soaping stage, on a coloured washing liquor. Collected radiance measurement were processed using JMP software to obtain total, reflected and luminescent radiance factors as well as values of lightness, green-red opponency and yellow-blue opponency which form part of a uniform colour space. Cleanliness and whiteness perception are then obtained under different visual scenarios.

Examples

1. Spectrofluorimetry of wet fabrics:

Typical complex visual scene during a soaking stage

Y=uW/cm2/nm/sr
FABR_WATER, absolute fluorescence emission from the wet fabric immersed only in water
FABR_SOAP, absolute fluorescence emission from the wet fabric immersed in a soaking solution made with laundry soap

FABR_WATER, spectral reflected radiance factor of the wet fabric immersed only in water
FABR_SOAP, spectral reflected radiance factor of the wet fabric immersed in a soaking solution made with laundry soap

FABR_WATER, spectral total radiance factor of the wet fabric immersed only in water, under natural daylight (~ 15,000 K)
FABR_SOAP, spectral reflected radiance factor of the wet fabric immersed in a soaking solution made with laundry soap, under natural daylight (~ 15,000 K)

2. Colorimetry of wet fabrics under natural daylight

Perceived colour attributes of the previous scene: lightness, green-red opponency and yellow-blue opponency, were estimated using the new Uniform Colour Space J', a' b', which in turn is based on the colour appearance model CIECAM02.