Review: Muc-Off Technical Wash For Apparel – 300ml

The Muc-Off Technical Wash For Apparel is a sure-fire way to clean your cycling clothes without risk, ensuring your clothing’s water repellency and breathability remains unaltered during the wash process. It’s pretty effective – but boy is it crazy expensive!

Specialist washing detergents for technical clothing is not a new thing – brands like Nikwax and Grangers have been at it for decades now, initially catering mostly to the hiking crowd. Now, Muc-Off has joined the party with several cleaning products, including this Technical Wash For Apparel and Rain Shield Re-proofer (which I’m also testing at the moment).

Given that cycling clothing probably gets dirtier and smellier than anything else out there, even more so if you venture off-road in the winter, I was intrigued to find out how this product performed compared with my regular washing detergent.

You can use Muc-Off’s Technical Wash For Apparel in a washing machine, or for hand washing, it’s safe to use in hard or soft water areas and is designed to gently wash your cycling garments without stripping off the water repellent coating, or clogging the fibres that affect your clothing’s breathability. It’s also biodegradable and PFC-free [PFCs are ‘perfluorinated compounds’, manmade substances that can break down into other harmful substances over time], so it’s not going to harm you or the environment. 

> Waterproof cycling clothing – everything you need to know

The washing procedure is pretty much what you expect. Other than initially shaking the bottle, you simply fill your washing machine tray with about five cap-fulls of the solution, stick it on a 30°C cycle, and away you go. Muc-Off says the 300ml bottle is good for about 12 washes.

I tested it on a variety of mud-encrusted garments, including a bright red Polartec DHB soft-shell, and lurid orange Albion synthetic winter socks (colour clash, right?). it removed virtually all the dirt marks with ease. I may have been imagining things, but the orange in the socks looked a bit brighter than usual. No surprises, the cleaner wasn’t able to get rid of the oily marks on some of my clothing, but then neither is my regular detergent, and I wasn’t expecting it to.

After hanging the garments up, I noticed that unlike a regular detergent, there was no lingering perfume smell, which is good, and thankfully the garment didn’t have any body odours still attached to it either, although in my experience that’s not a problem for my regular detergent either.

So, it all works pretty well, then. But there’s an issue: is a technical wash like Muc-Off’s really necessary? Muc-Off says the product ‘gives your garments a deep but safe clean, while protecting any existing DWR treatments and the breathability of the material’. That’s good to know, and while I don’t doubt those claims, is it any better than a regular detergent?

However, according to Gore (owner of the Gore-Tex brand), it’s not actually essential. In the article: ‘How to wash Gore-Tex apparel’, which asks: ‘Which washing detergent should I use?’, Gore says, ‘No need for special detergents, any normal household wash detergent is fine. What is important is to use liquid detergent and then just sparingly (about 30ml). Powder detergents and fabric softeners can reduce the breathability of the product. Of course, you can also use special detergents that are available at any good outdoor retailer that also carries Gore-Tex products.’

Value

Although I’ve used Nikwax on Gore-Tex motorcycle gear in the past, these days I just use whatever’s under my kitchen sink – in my case a supermarket own-brand non-bio laundry liquid, which is plant-based and therefore contains no toxic nasties. A 1.5-litre bottle is about £4.50, which works out at three quid a litre. It’s served me pretty well, and although eventually the DWR (Durable Water Repellency) has worn off after not long, they all wear out eventually anyway.

By comparison Muc-Off’s Technical Wash For Apparel costs £13 for 300ml, which is £43.33 a litre – a huge difference by any standards. Merlin Cycles presently has it on sale for £7.99, which is much cheaper but still a pricey £26.63 per litre.

The Nikwax Tech Wash George tested is available in a one-litre bottle from Decathlon for £12.99. In terms of effectiveness, there doesn’t appear to be much in it, other than the Nikwax being much, much cheaper.

Less expensive still is the Grangers Performance Wash that’s available in a one-litre eco pouch for £13.50 – although I found it at £6.49, which is still twice the price of the detergent I use – but obviously far cheaper than Muc-Off’s.

Conclusion

Muc-Off’s product does work, for sure, but the price is so inflated over any other existing performance washing detergent out there, which makes it hard for me to recommend. As I’ve already highlighted, there are much cheaper options out there if you really want the assurance of a detergent specifically for technical clothing.

Verdict

Decent technical garment cleaner, but the sky-high price tag makes it hard to justify