Last spring, our ancient, decrepit washing machine finally broke down for good. So we had to buy another one.

We decided to purchase one of the high-efficiency front-loaders that uses only a fraction of the water that regular top-loaders use. Of course, there are low-sudsing detergents out there that are made specifically for these front-loaders. The service guy that installed our machine informed us that we could use regular detergent, but we only needed to use half as much.

So why would I purchase the high-efficiency detergent when I can make regular detergent go twice as far?