Jill noticed that there were two different designs of Dawn dish detergent on the shelf. As a savvy consumer, she knew that sometimes a redesign can mask a strike from the Grocery Shrink Ray. Indeed, the new bottles contained two fewer ounces of detergent, yet advertise that they contain “2X More.” Wait…two times more of what?

At first, Jill thought that this meant that the bottle has two times as much soap in it than the 9-ounce bottles. Procter & Gamble can’t think that we’re all that stupid, can it?

With the help of another visit to the store and some help from her blog readers, she was able to figure out what the label is referring to. It turns out that the answer is “cleaning power,” but the bottle compares this product, Dawn Ultra, to regular non-Ultra Dawn. Is non-concentrated Dawn even on the market anymore? It’s available in dollar stores, apparently.

Okay. So we have a “2X more” label distracting us from the slightly smaller bottles, bragging that it has more grease-fighting power than a product that isn’t actually available at Jewel, the grocery store where Jill discovered this shrinkage. That doesn’t make sense…but at least disguises the smaller size a little bit.

More grocery shrinkage in the store aisles: Dawn advertises “2X More”… yet it dropped two ounces from the bottle. [Jill Cataldo]

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