The Resurgence of Quick Wash: Innovating for a Time-Poor World

July 2025

Returning to office work has renewed demand for quick wash laundry solutions due to time-constrained consumers, especially dual-income families. Current quick wash options often lead to dissatisfaction due to misuse and unsuitable detergents. This highlights the urgent need for specialized quick wash solutions and harmonized partnerships between appliance and detergent brands. Innovations like AI-enabled "mixing-in-the-moment" (MITM) are key, optimizing detergent delivery for superior results.

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Key Findings

The return to office work and increasingly busy lives revive quick wash

With the global return to office work and increasingly busy lifestyles, consumers are once again severely time-constrained, turning quick wash into an urgent priority. The demand stems from the need to fit laundry into shrinking windows for in-home task management. Dual-income households with children are the most affected by this.

An existing performance gap leads to consumer dissatisfaction

Time-strapped consumers often misuse quick wash, leading to dissatisfaction. Standard detergents can leave residue and fail to eliminate odours. This clearly highlights the urgent need for better, specialised quick wash solutions, a demand reflected in recent product innovations that are so far aiming at solving quick wash in isolation.

Cross-industry partnership will create better quick wash results

There are limitations to trying to solve quick wash in isolation, emphasising the critical need for harmonised partnerships between appliance brands, who provide the mechanical action, and detergent brands, who must formulate fast-acting, low-temperature solutions to prevent residue and machine damage, and ensure sufficient hygiene and stain removal in short cycles.

Smart AI-controlled mission sensing is a performance booster

Beyond basic auto-dosing, AI-enabled "mixing-in-the-moment" (MITM) is revolutionising laundry by leveraging smart sensors to precisely tailor detergent blends for each wash, leading to superior performance and efficiency. This shift hands control to AI, ensuring ingredients activate perfectly when needed, signalling a significant evolution in consumable delivery and effectiveness.

Technological advancement blurs lines between industries

While partnership constitutes a key component in managing consumer dissatisfaction and driving quick wash, both appliance and detergent brands are crossing into each other's territory to enhance user value and product performance. Some view this as a collaborative effort, while others see it as a prime opportunity to boost consumer resonance and increase profits.

Why read this report?
Key findings
The laundry care conundrum: Seeking performance without the wait
Quick wash should target millennials accounting for 21% of total population in 2025
Office return drives demand for improved home efficiencies
Juggling work and home: The time squeeze on domestic tasks is intensifying (again)
Despite falling birth rates we predict over 1 billion households with children by 2030
Quick wash dominates as time-strapped consumers often sacrifice clean for speed
Consumers share their quick wash frustrations in online forums
Residue and poor odour removal are commonly experienced quick wash issues
Limitations of short cycles are insufficiently understood by consumers
Samsung Q-Drive technology reinvented the laundry wheel back in 2017
Persil Wonder Wash: A consumer-led innovation addressing consumer pain points
Better solutions are emerging but the key to success lies in cross-industry synergy
The laundry care system relies on a fragile balance between its interdependent factors
Changes in laundry habits might disturb this balance, leading to undesired outcomes
The need for cross-industry solutions: This is one repeating theme
Collaboration helps to preserve the balance between the different laundry care vectors
P&G has been particularly active in forming partnerships with appliance brands
P&G launches Cold Certified programme recruiting leading appliance brands
Smart washing machines with auto-dosing capability support better quick wash results
A smarter version of auto-dosing is emerging, offering luxury fabric care in the home
More advanced AI paves the way for a more nuanced disaggregated ingredient release
Mixing-in-the-moment optimises ingredient release and prevents unwanted outcomes
AI-controlled sense and react enables better outcomes and minimises human error
The best-case scenario for quick wash is a combination of technology and partnership
Smart technology is opening opportunities for system-wide value generation
Haier’s Internet of Clothing (IoC): A one-stop solution to rule them all
SmartWash: Henkel launches a retrofit device for smart laundry
Ecosystem thinking and a collaborative mindset are spreading across industries
Haier WashPass launches smart laundry subscription with superior performance
Implications for all relevant quick wash stakeholders
Quick wash benefits sales of laundry additives that deliver on hygiene and scent
Vanish Gold Pro: An in-wash stain remover formulated for quick and cold cycles
Bosch FreshUp: A handheld device using plasma technology to refresh garments
Polygiene StayFresh: Anti-odour technology in fabrics reduces need for washing
Recommendations/Opportunities for growth
Evolution of quick wash
Questions we are asking
Customisable solutions to help you explore what’s next, where to play and how to win

Home Care

This is the aggregation of laundry care, dishwashing products, surface care, chlorine bleach, toilet care, polishes, air fresheners and insecticides.

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