"Tough stain? Try our brand of detergent" is the slogan for many laundering and cleaning products. However, the answer could be  "Tough stain? Check the ASTM standard." Most of us have seen the ads featuring photos of a stained piece of fabric as the "before" picture, with the "after" picture next to it showing a clean fabric with the stain washed away. These ads, which are often used by soap and detergent manufacturers to promote their products, surely influence consumers when deciding which brands to purchase, but did you know there are ASTM standards that cover these very products? ASTM Committee D12 on Soaps and Other Detergents develops standards that cover all aspects important to the soap and detergent industry, including composition, sampling, classification, analysis and quality assurance. Subcommittee D12.12 focuses on the analysis and specifications for soaps, synthetics, detergents and their components. There are D12 standards for evaluating stain removal performance in home laundering, measuring soil removal from artificially soiled products, evaluating fabric softeners, and for color transfer/loss of dyed products. As for other cleaning products used in the home, D12 also covers glassware deposition during mechanical dishwashing, foam stability for hand dishwashing detergents, and cleaning performance of ceramic tile cleaners. The committee is also currently developing a standard to evaluate the cleaning performance of products for use on home kitchen surfaces. And for those who like shortcuts but are unsure if they clean as well as traditional methods, the committee is also working on a new standard that will determine the cleaning efficacy of hard surface cleaning wipes. Whether you consider them chores or not, cleaning and laundry are a part of most of our daily lives, and so are standards.