Sponsored by ATSKO the makers of U-V-Killer, No-O-Dor, Sport Wash and other products for hunters.
The Missed Secret. By Wade Nolan - Bowhunting Biologist
Apr 30, 2007 - 12:55:10 PM
I love to learn new whitetail hunting stuff and Mike Jordan is always teaching me something new. Jordan is an addicted whitetail and turkey hunter who does the product development for ATSKO. Kirt Von Besser is the owner of ATSKO and he has spent a lot of his time field testing their products on hunts. This field testing matters. Atsko makes the science based products that most serious whitetailers use for cleaning our bodies and clothes. This time Mike challenged me on whether or not clean clothes would gain weight if we washed them in normal laundry detergent. I said no. All of my life I have believed that the washing machine would rinse out all of the detergent and clothes would be clean.
Kirt Von Besser doesn't outsource his products or his experience. He is a hands-on guy, always working on developing new or better cleaning products that make hunters more successful.
THE TEST
So we used a sophisticated scale that measures weight differences down to a thousandth of a pound and weighted a brand new garment. We recorded the weight and washed it in a popular detergent. After drying the garment we weighted it again and to my surprise it gained considerable weight. I was surprised and educated.
BAD FOR HUNTERS
Then I asked him to show me the science. How could clothes gain weight after being washed? I was more than curious. If Mike is right then that means that my hunting clothes are filled with some kind of detergent residue and residue must stink.
Mike showed me a carbon chain drawing that represents how all soaps and detergents are made. It was a circle with carbon and hydrogen molecules scattered around the outer edge. Jordan explained that during washing the carbon chain breaks and the circle turns into a hook. This hook design allows detergent residue to attach or bond to fibers on our clothes and becomes a part of the garment, thus adding weight.
He explained that all soaps are engineered like this and that the ASTM standards people even have levels that are related to rinse ability. In other words they know that some residue is left in our clothes and they regulate it. In Japan it is strictly regulated by their federal government. My question is, why hasn't someone told me about this.
GOOD FOR HUNTERS
This is bad for hunters because it means that detergent residue is all through our cloths and residue smells. In the hunting industry only one company makes their own soap and detergent and all of the others outsource their soaps. ATSKO (www.atsko.com ) makes their own and they use specific chemistry that gets different results. ATSKO soap and detergent use a formulation that is a straight carbon chain rather than a circle or hook. The straight carbon chain detergent design rinses out.
Only one laundry detergent will both clean your clothes and remove all residue from your camo. In the background is the scale Mike Jordan used for testing.
This proprietary formulation not only does a better job at washing clothes but it rinses completely out of the garments. Mike proved this to me when he washed the same garment that we started with using Sport-Wash Laundry Detergent. Now if you have been following this you realize that the garment gained weight when it was washed in a regular detergent. So now it is heavier than when we began. Now Jordan washed it in Sport-Wash Laundry Detergent. After drying we weighed it again…
The entire accumulated residue was gone and now the garment weighted the same as it did in the beginning. The SPORT-WASH LAUNDRY DETERGENT had actually removed the built up detergent from this new garment. Now let's connect the dots.
HUNTERS WAKE UP CALL
Deer can smell up to 10.000 times better than humans. We know that they can smell where you walked …yesterday! Will they smell detergent residue on your camo … you bet! What can we do to fix this problem … wash em right is the answer. It's the missed secret. The only thing that a deer can't smell is "nothing"
