Baby badly burned by washing machine detergent

This is an unfortunate incident, the Daily Record is reporting that a 17-month-old child (Taylor Mills) has apparently been burned by the gel in a washing machine detergent Ariel Excel. A spokesman for Proctor & Gamble who make the detergent in question are reported to have said: “All our products are extensively researched and are safe to use as directed.”

I have no reason to disbelieve this, so I doubt a general warning about the detergent in question is necessarily. I’m assuming that this incident has happened because the detergent did not dissolve properly and even survived all the rinses. This can happen if the drum is overloaded as tablets or gel packets can become trapped inside folds of laundry and not dissolve properly if they have no room to move about during washing.

It’s too early to know the exact cause of this particular incident but the manufacturer’s suspicion is that the product was not used exactly as directed by the instructions. However, as I’ve commented before, manufacturers of any product should presumably design them in the full knowledge that instructions will not always be followed, and must make sure that this inevitable fact of life cannot result in any serious consequences (within reason). At the same time people do have a duty of care to follow instructions and manufactures shouldn’t necessarily be held responsible if people are negligent, so it’s probably for the courts to decide.

The warning is that particularly when washing children’s items you should make sure the washing machine is loaded correctly and not overloaded to such an extent that the whole mass of laundry just turns round in one big lump. In such situations the detergent has no room to dissolve properly and as this case highlights, some undissolved detergents can burn and could have serious consequences. Instructions on the packet should also be read and understood. It’s too easy to assume we don’t need to look at instructions for commonly used products but we should.

Don’t under-load either

The washing machine drum does need to be fully loaded in order to avoid under loading, which can result in out of balance spins, or more commonly these days (due to the out of balance detection software in most washing machines) a refusal to spin altogether. It also needs to be fully loaded in order to wash economically and cut down unnecessary loads. Tips on loading can be found in my Washerhelp article – Am I overloading my washing machine?

Overloading may not be relevant in this case

I’ve written this article because the case has prompted me to remind people about overloading and highlighted the potential for more serious consequences than poor wash results. However, I don’t mean to have decided that overloading was definitely the main factor in this case. I can only presume that the gel somehow got trapped inside the babies garment and did not dissolve. There is the potential for other causes that I have not thought of. Hopefully I will be able to update this article if further light is shone on the subject.

Baby badly burned by washing machine detergent (The Daily Record news article)