Written by Jonathan Chan, senior manager of lab operations with a decade of experience testing products.
Updated April 23, 2024
It’s rare to find a product that is effective, cost-saving, and eco-friendly. But that’s what you get with laundry sheets. Manufacturers use water-soluble cellulose pads that have been soaked in detergent.
Laundry detergent sheets offer a plastic-bottle-free solution, are easy to store, and provide an eco-friendly alternative to liquid detergents. The sheets are as popular as ever and there are so many choices out there. Using our labs and enterprise in scientifically testing detergents, we picked eight of the best-selling laundry sheets to see which ones are actually worth the money.
After spending weeks testing stain removal, comparing prices, doing literal sniff tests, and researching the manufacturers, we think that Grove Co. Power Clean Laundry Detergent Sheets (available at Grove Collaborative) provide the best of all worlds. It has the best cleaning of any laundry sheet we tested with a pleasant scent. The downside is that it is the most expensive per wash on our list.
If you’re looking to get laundry sheets delivered to you every month for a major discount, Hey Sunday to where it’s at. We tested the Ocean Breeze fragrance and it’s fantastic. Plus, you get a 30 percent discount if you subscribe and get a delivery for 30 or 60 days—perfect for a large family.
Best Overall
Grove Collaborative Power Clean Laundry Detergent Sheets
A laundry sheet needs to be able to remove stains, be easy to use, and help the Earth. Power Clean sheets from Grove Collaborative fulfill all these in spades.
In fact, across all stains in the cleaning test, the Power Clean sheets removed an average of one percent more soils than the second place sheets and about three percent more than the product in last place. Now, at first glance, that doesn’t sound like much. However, since stains don’t magically disappear, over the lifetime of an article of clothing, it really adds up.
After calculating stain removal, we also checked on how clean our test laundry smelled. Power Clean sheets don’t impart the strongest scent, but we appreciate the light combined scent of lavender and thyme. Often, brands go for too much lavender and it makes clothes smell perfumed rather than fresh.
Beyond just cleaning, our research shows that Grove Co. is more than just a provider of products—it is also an ally of Mother Nature. We combed through the company’s 2023 Environmental Impact Report and liked what we saw. For example, the company is certified as carbon neutral when it comes to shipping and a Benefit Corporation. The company has also funded the planting of a million trees and the preservation of tens of thousands of acres of grassland.
The one major issue we have with Grove Co. Power Clean Sheets is the price. Shopping around, we calculate the price to be between 32 and 40 cents a sheet, placing them above average compared to competitors.
Pros
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Good stain removal
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Fresh scent
Cons
-
Pricey
Buy now at Grove Collaborative
Best Subscription
HeySunday Laundry Detergent Sheets
One major advantage of laundry sheets over liquid detergents is how easy and eco-friendly they are to ship — and that they can’t be spilled. That’s why we think laundry sheets are perfect for the subscription model.
If you’re into the idea of laundry sheets being delivered to your house on a schedule and with a discount, we’d suggest checking out Hey Sunday.
Purchasing from the company website, allows you to get 60 sheets every 30 or 60 days inverals. There’s also a 30 percent discount that lowers the cost from about 33 cents a sheet to 23 cents a sheet—the most affordable of any brand we tested. And the slim cardboard sleeve that they are shipped in will take up very little space in your laundry room.
Even though Hey Sunday is affordable, it’s no slouch in the cleaning department either. In terms of stain removal, it landed in the middle of the pack.
However, the Ocean Breeze variety imparted an excellent fresh scent onto our test laundry. And the Fragrance-Free version left no scent at all. Hey Sunday has you covered no matter your preference.
Finally, we liked the recyclable packaging. It was a minimalist cardboard sleeve with paper bands keeping the sheets together. Overall, one of the most eco-friendly presentations we tested.
Pros
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Flexible subscription
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Excellent Scent
Cons
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Moderate stain removal
Buy now at HeySunday
Other laundry detergent sheets we tested
Arm & Hammer Power Sheets
Arm & Harmer has a long history of making quality products ranging from wildly popular toothpaste to now laundry sheets.
The Power Sheets lived up to their name, coming in second place in our stain removal test. It did particularly well against our blood and red wine stains. On the smell front, the Fresh Linen variety is average, in our opinion. It’s the same acceptable perfume you find in linen-scented candles.
Cost-wise, Arm & Hammer Power Sheets are on the affordable side. During our research, we found them to average 30 cents a sheet.
If you’re a fan of Arm & Hammer products, the Power Sheets are worth checking out.
Pros
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Food stain removal
Cons
-
Weak scent
Buy now at Amazon
$15.98 from Home Depot
$14.98 from Walmart
Tru Earth Laundry Strips (Fragrance Free)
Tru Earth is one of the most popular laundry detergent sheets on the market. In fact, it was the Tru Earth brand that first brought the concept of detergent sheets to our attention. And while the competition has become more fierce, Tru Earth’s performance in our latest round of testing is nothing to sneeze at.
When it comes to stain removal, Tru Earth came in third place behind Grove Co. and Arm & Hammer. The reason that it’s not higher on our list is because of the price. Our hypothesis is that since Tru Earth is so popular, it’s driven up the price. Checking out multiple retailers, at the time of writing this piece, the average cost per sheet was 38 cents. Combine the second-highest price with the third-best cleaning performance and you get a middle-of-the-pack laundry sheet.
Pros
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Plastic-free
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Good cleaning
Cons
-
Expensive
Buy now at Amazon
$18.68 from Walmart
Sheets Laundry Club Laundry Sheets
Sheets Laundry Club is the most customizable brand on our list. Via Sheets’ website, you can order boxes containing 50, 200, or 400 of scented or unscented sheets at a frequency of between 1-4 months. That’s a lot of flexibility.
When it comes to stain removal, Sheets is in fourth place—removing around 60.41 percent of our testing stains that are designed to never fully get clean.
Our biggest concern is that even with the maximum discount for bulk shipping, Sheets still cost more than Hey Sunday, averaging between 25 and 29 cents per sheet.
However, we like that Sheets is Leaping Bunny certified, which means that they don’t test on animals and use ingredients that are eco-friendly. In addition, we enjoyed the Fresh Linen scent that is derived from osmanthus blossoms.
Pros
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Bulk orders
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Good stain removal
Cons
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Low discounts for large orders
Buy now at Amazon
$14.98 from Walmart
Everspring Laundry Detergent Sheets
Everspring is available at popular retailers like Target. Our testing showed that it lagged behind Grove Co. by 1.65 percent when it came to stain removal, second-to-last place overall. It’s also fairly expensive. At the time of publication, our research found Everspring had an average cost of 37 cents per sheet. Overall, not our favorite, but we can’t deny how easy it was to find and purchase.
Pros
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Easy to find
Cons
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Below-average stain removal
$11.99 from Target
Earth Breeze Laundry Detergent Liquidless Eco Sheets
We rounded out our testing with Earth Breeze. It’s a super popular brand that introduced many people to the concept of laundry sheets. It’s got a lot of things going for it, including the fact that it’s Leaping Bunny certified and part of an organization that donates one percent of its profits to impactful causes.
As a product, Earth Breeze laundry sheets have stiff competition. Its stain removal capabilities did not measure up to Grove Co. or Hey Sunday. And it’s not particularly affordable either.
Pros
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Good at stain removal
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Easy to use
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Space-saving
Cons
-
Smell doesn't last long
Buy now at Earth Breeze
Buy now at Amazon
$20.99 from Walmart
How we tested
The Tester
Hey, I’m Jon Chan, the senior lab manager here at Reviewed with over a decade of experience, specializing in floor care and laundry products. I test tons of detergents, ranging from eco-friendly detergents to those for sensitive skin. When it comes to laundry sheets, I wanted to focus on finding products that cleaned well and were good for the Earth.
The Tests
To test stain removal, we pitted all detergents against standardized cloth test strips coated with carbon, body oils, blood, cocoa, and red wine. We put them through a Speed Wash cycle in an LG front loader set to tap cold which our chillers keep at 60°F—along with four pounds of laundry made up of pillowcases, sheets, and towels. We placed a whole sheet of each detergent for each test load. Immediately, after a test cycle ends we remove the stain strips and do a sniff test on the laundry to gauge the scent.
After waiting 12 hours for the stain strips to dry in a dark room, we used a piece of lab equipment called a photo-spectrometer to determine exactly how much of each stain had been lifted.
In addition to testing the detergent sheets, we also do research into the brands like how much they cost and manufacturing processes.
What you should know about laundry detergent sheets
How do laundry detergent sheets work?
Typically laundry sheets are made of resin and cellulose. The sheets are soaked in detergent which gets released when the sheet dissolves in water. This is why the laundry sheets all had very similar stain-removal performance—they can only soak up so much detergent. You could increase the cleaning power by adding more sheets, but there are downsides to doing that. There’s a chance that the sheets won’t dissolve properly and that will leave gunk on your clothes. Also, every sheet you toss in increases the cost per wash.
Are laundry sheets as good as liquid laundry detergents?
Looking through the data we gathered on regular, eco-friendly, and detergents for sensitive skin, we can say that laundry sheets are not as effective as liquid detergents. It really comes down to a matter of mass. Most of the laundry sheets weigh between three and five grams, whereas a low dose of Persil detergent tips the scales at around 37 grams.
We used the same stain strips to test liquid detergents. On average, liquid detergents outperformed laundry sheets by about 10% to11%across all stains.
Are laundry detergent sheets eco-friendly?
Laundry detergent sheets are a good way to lessen your carbon footprint. One of the major benefits is a reduction in the amount of resources it takes to ship. A plastic jug that contains 60 loads of liquid detergent is mostly water. With sheets, you are only shipping cleaning product and lightweight cellulose.
Most of the brands we tested are plant-based and avoid using harsh chemicals. The end results are products that reduce the amount of plastic and fossil fuels used in the world.
More Articles You May Enjoy
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- The Best Eco-Friendly Laundry Detergents
- Everything you need to know about doing laundry
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Meet the tester
Jonathan Chan currently serves as the Lab Manager at Reviewed. If you clean with it, it's likely that Jon oversees its testing. Since joining the Reviewed in 2012, Jon has helped launch the company's efforts in reviewing laptops, vacuums, and outdoor gear. He thinks he's a pretty big deal. In the pursuit of data, he's plunged his hands into freezing cold water, consented to be literally dragged through the mud, and watched paint dry. Jon demands you have a nice day.
See all of Jonathan Chan's reviews
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