My clothes turn white but so do I. Review on Rin Detergent Bar

Rin is but a household name in India.

The secondary reason why Rin is so popular and one of the major revenue-fetching product of HLL, is that it is quite old product that with great innovative advertising and aggressive pricing found great penetration in the market - both urban and rural. So if it is secondary reason, what could be the primary reason?

The primary reason is that Rin is a quality bar that washes clothes real clean. Very early on the most popular soap was Sunlight - a yellow colored bar that promised whiteness and did deliver it (it does even now). But then after the monopoly of yellow Sunlight and other cheap imitations, the scenario changed with launch of Rin - the blue coloured soap with ''Neel'' power. People switched brands quickly and were really impressed with it, so much that all households have used it more than once. The innovative ads claiming that now you need not brush often, just brush once and get the required whiteness, has appealed a lot amongst consumers.

To talk of the detergent bar, it is really very effective. For quite some time, we used it. All that is required is that the clothes be wet, soaked previously, preferably in warm water. A little dab on the bar with the cloth brush and then scrub the clothes left and right, up and down. A little extra brushing on the collar and armpit sections and the clothes turn out nice and white. In fact the bar is now synonymous with ''whiteness''. The clothes may later be dipped in water again and rinsed and then manually spin-dried. HLL has had chemical innovations, dubbed as ''Whiteguard'' in marketing terms, incorporated in this bar that gives the clothes the requisite whiteness and the also supposedly retain the color of the fabrics.

But then, with the advent of amazing detergent powders including the HLL's own Surf, Surf Excel and Surf Excelmatic, we have largely limited the usage of Rin bar. Though expensive, the effect of detergents is far more superior and easy. Take the case of P&G's Ariel (I have a review on it), soaking the clothes in it (as described earlier as the first step), removes 50% or more dirt/stains straight off. Rest of the work is done peacefully by my BPL ABS-45 (God bless, I have a review on it too). I feel that scrubbing of clothes is fine for 1 or 2 clothes, a loner's best past time. But then consider the regular and office use clothes and you land up with 20 clothes everyday that needs scrubbing. Baby, don't count me in! But the scrubbing can be quite painful and besides tiring your arms and muscles, also include a backache in the list. And then you can imagine what such scrubbing with brush can do your clothes.

But then lets also look at the Rin bar in the soap case. It gets soggy and most of it gets washed away, as it dissolves in the water. The next morning, you will find the bar sticking to the soap case and it needs to be pulled apart. So you need more Rin in a month than really required.

But yes, we do use Rin, like I said, limited use, only for real dirty collars. A good detergent bar, but I don't quite recommend it, try the powder version instead (Rin Shakti).