Reader N. has some laundry that’s pretty dirty. She has a toddler, who uses cloth diapers. Yet she’s never used more than one scoop of her preferred detergent, Tide powder. She was surprised recently to open up the box and find a bigger scoop inside the box. Who needs this much detergent? Is Procter & Gamble trying to get customers to overdose on suds?

“I can’t imagine why someone would need the new scoop on the left, which suggests 5 levels and then some,” N. observes.

We contacted Procter & Gamble, but they didn’t get back to us on this question. Our laundry enthusiast colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports keep an eye on these things, and have pointed out cases where confusing directions could lead customers to use too much detergent with Target’s store-brand detergent and even P&G’s own Ariel detergent. Procter & Gamble also makes Cheer brand detergent, which pulled a surprisingly similar super-scoop-sizing trick back in 2008.

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