In Which We Do Laundry - Part I

I may not be the most domestic person in the world, but I do like to think that I am capable of doing my own laundry. Washing clothes isn't terribly difficult and having already used British machines when I was an undergraduate at St. Andrews, I should have been well prepared to do my own laundry here.
Of course, using the machine is the easy part - just try figuring out what kind of detergent to buy!

In Britain, detergent comes in a bewildering variety of types. There are "bio," "non bio," and "colour" to name, but a few. I don't think that any of these categories except possibly "colour" even exist in the United States. When I was in Scotland, I used to buy Persil laundry tabs specifically because they were not labeled with any of these bizarre titles.

As best as I can tell:

-bio - The detergent has enzymes in it like a contact solution. These enzymes will allegedly eat the stains off your clothes (but maybe the colors, too?). Apparently, the enzymes irritate some people's skin.

-non bio - No enzymes. Good for people with sensitive skin. Regular detergent???

-colour - Presumably good for cleaning colored clothing (but how many people wear just whites? Aren't most detergents meant for colored clothes?). Possibly also bio.

Once you have managed to select one of these types, you need to pick a format. You can choose from liquid, powder, tablets, or liquid tablets. Liquid and powder are pretty straight forward. We used to have tablets in the U.S., but I haven't bought them in years, so maybe we don't anymore. Liquid tablets are like those like those little pouches of liquid they make for dishwashers in the U.S. Liquid detergent seems to be the cheapest, whereas liquid tablets are the most expensive.

Ariel has a "helpful" quiz you can take on their webpage to decide what format to you use, but it doesn't get very specific and it doesn’t help you choose between, bio, non-bio, etc.

I ended up buying liquid Persil Colour. I bought it largely because it was on sale. The bottle claims it "is the next generation of liquid detergent that is kind to your colours," but, like all the other brands, the packaging fails to explain what "colour" means as a variety.

Persil also has Her Majesty the Queen's Royal Warrant, so you know it is a quality product. Does Tide have a Royal Warrant? No, it does not! Using a product with a Royal Warrant is a sign of status and should be the kind of thing one mentions to one's guests at one's candlelight suppers so that they know one is a person of a certain social station.