I just want to comment here, as I represent the manufacturer of this product. I COMPLETELY disagree with Jonathan’s assessment of the product itself,

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the manufacturer of the product disagrees with my statement that it is useless.

There are three possible scenarios here:

1. The product works.
2. The product doesn’t work and yet Judy actually believes that it does.
3. The product doesn’t work, Judy knows it doesn’t work, and yet she is still trying to convince people that it works.

Everything written on Life Miracle’s Web site, and everything Judy has written on behalf of Life Miracle in email to me and in the comment above, would be the same regardless of which of these scenarios is true.

The only thing missing is the one thing which Life Miracle could publish only if the product actually works: the results of rigorous laboratory tests showing that clothes washed with the magnets end up cleaner than clothes washed in nothing but water.

Here’s the fascinating thing: Life Miracle had an outside laboratory do such tests over ten years ago. The laboratory washed identically stained clothes without detergent, both with and without the Magnetic Laundry System, and then measured how much cleaner they were. On Life Miracle’s Web site, it has published the results of the laundry run with the magnets, but the results of the laundry run in which only water was used are omitted. The only conceivable explanation for why Life Miracle would fail to publish these results is because they show that water alone gets clothes just as clean as water plus magnets.

If that’s not, in fact, what is shown by the unreleased results, then I encourage Life Miracle to publish these results and let everyone see the independent laboratory confirmation that magnets clean clothes better than water alone.

Washing clothes with less detergent is a good idea. In some cases, even washing clothes with no detergent is a good idea. But people don’t need this product to use less or no detergent. All they need is the knowledge that they don’t need to use as much detergent to get their clothes clean.

Here are some additional questions that people might consider when evaluating whether this product actually does anything:

1. Consumers buy over $3 billion worth of laundry-detergent products per year. The Magnetic Laundry System has been on the market for eight years, and the manufacturer claims that it makes most of those billions of dollars worth of detergent obsolete. Nevertheless, its sales even today are miniscule. Is that plausible if it really works?
2. Over eleven years after the first patent behind this product was filed, there isn’t a single washing-machine manufacturer in the entire world selling a machine which uses this technology to clean clothes. Is that plausible if it really works?

the vast majority of our customers would disagree with him as well.

The vast majority of Bernie Madoff’s clients thought he was the cat’s meow.

The vast majority of patients treated with leeches and suction cups in the middle ages thought the treatments were effective.

The vast majority of people who bought the tonics sold by con men on the American frontier believed they had curative powers.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. It doesn’t matter how many people have been hoodwinked if there is no objective scientific evidence that the product works.

Not to mention the fact that we have no way of knowing how many customers have purchased the product or how many of them are satisfied with it, since Life Miracle has not published those statistics and I assume they have no intention of doing so.

This is the first time in eight years a customer has so virulently attacked this amazing product.

I guess you’ve been pretty lucky, then.

http://web.archive.org/web/19990428054924/www.optc.com/~btoback/laundrystuff.html
http://www.mother-ease.com/wwwboard/messages/Default.asp/sub/show/action/posts/fid/1/tid/11086
http://www.post1.net/lowem/entry/balls_to_you_too
http://www.rathinker.co.kr/skeptic/refuge/laundry.html
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/944/do-laundry-balls-really-work
http://weeklywire.com/ww/12-08-97/nash_ol-helter_shelter-original.html
http://www.choice.com.au/viewArticle.aspx?id=105458&catId=100285&tid=100008
http://www.chem1.com/CQ/magscams.html#MLA
http://sniggle.net/Laundry/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laundry_ball
http://perchance-to-dream.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!831B7AF66C9D1F6C!137.entry
http://www.care2.com/c2c/groups/disc.html?gpp=41&pst=1155172
http://rc.bipc.org/fanni/maghale/5-Int’l.%20Studies/FDA%20Report%20on%20Pseduscience%20Technologies.pdf
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070719191503AA9DQyK
http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=2&fldAuto=25
http://www.keytlaw.com/FTC/Cases/071.htm
http://www.jonstarbuck.co.uk/archives/121
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026852.700-water-washes-whitish.html

(That’s not even a complete list.) Some of these deal specifically with the Life Miracle Magnetic Laundry System and other magnetic laundry products, some of them deal specifically with the classic TradeNet “laundry balls” scam and products like them, and some of them deal with both. All are relevant, because Life Miracle is using exactly the same strategies for marketing its product as all the other laundry scams have used in the past (claims to revolutionary technology, reliance on anecdotal evidence, environmentalist appeal, etc.), and like the perpetrators of all those other scams, Life Miracle has offered no objective evidence that its product works.

We are a very small company, and our sincere goal is to do as much good to help people and the environment as we possibly can.

Unless you are a non-profit, your sincere goal is to make money.

If you don’t like our product, fine. But please don’t make personal attacks on our character and make terrible assumptions about our intentions. That is just wrong.

It is laughable that you accuse me of making personal attacks, when it was you who made this personal in your private emails to me. You appealed to things that you and I supposedly have in common, things which are completely irrelevant to the question of whether your product works, in an effort to garner sympathy. Then, when it became clear that it was not going to work, you got nasty and suggested that I must have been paid off by a laundry detergent company to post my blog entry about your product.

As I told you in email, Judy, I do not believe in posting people’s private email without their permission. But that rule goes out the window when they make false accusations against me which their private emails disprove or say things in public which contradict things they said to me in private. Continue down this path, and you will find your emails to me published on this blog for all to see, and I assure you, it won’t be pretty. Please consider this fair warning.

It is difficult not to make “terrible assumptions about [your] intentions” after examining the scientifically absurd claims you make about your product; noting your failure to provide any objective scientific evidence that it works; noting your hiding of objective scientific evidence in your possession related to the question of whether it works; and noting that when asked for objective evidence that it works, you start talking about the toxic chemicals in laundry detergents, which, true or not, is completely irrelevant to the question of whether your product actually cleans clothes.

I do not know Jonathan’s motivation to spend such an enormous amount of effort and time to attack a product and a company that is doing our very best to do a little good in the world,

You have no idea how much “effort and time” I have spent on this, nor do you have any idea how much time I would consider “enormous.” I’d venture to say that I’ve spent less time on this than you have.

Having said that, my motivation is that I believe you are ripping people off, and I don’t believe in standing by idly and watching people get ripped off. And it is more than my own personal belief — it is in fact a religious obligation handed down by the Jewish Sages, based on Leviticus 19:16, “You shall not stand idly by the blood of your brother.”

What is within our control is how we treat our customers. We have a number of companies who buy the product from us and retail to the consumer. Jonathan purchased the product through one of our distributors. I cannot confirm the information posted above, but I will nevertheless take his word for it.

If you really wanted to “confirm the information posted above,” you could have asked me, and I could have provided you with copies of the on-line receipt for my order from Powerful Life, my credit-card statements showing when they charged me for shipping the product and for the product itself, the shipping label showing when they actually shipped it, and the USPS delivery confirmation record showing when it arrived at my house.

It seems to me that you would have asked for this proof if (a) you were really unaware of how this distributor was treating customers and (b) you really cared about it.

I am also taking steps to communicate to this distributor so it never happens to another customer. If it does, their ability to sell our product will be jeopardized. Period. Our customers deserve our complete honor and respect.

“I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” (Casablanca)

Powerful Life is cheating people.

I cannot imagine that you are so naive as to believe that a stern talking-to is going to convince them to stop. Companies that cheat people, keep cheating people… that’s what they do.

Just as the only way you can prove that your product actually works is to provide objective evidence that it cleans better than water alone, the only way you can prove that you actually care how your customers are treated is to sever your relationship with any distributor which is found to be cheating people.

Until Powerful Life is no longer distributing your products, you will remain complicit in their unscrupulous practices.

It is also worth noting that what you wrote above is different than what you told me in private email about how you are handling this issue. When you tell two different stories about how you’re handling the same problem, it is difficult to believe that either is true.

I have apologized to him directly for his alleged experience,

My “alleged” experience? I thought you said you were taking my word for it? Are you taking my word for it, or not? Would you like me to send you all of the proof listed above?

and have offered him a full and complete refund (including shipping costs) from us if he does not receive satisfaction from the reseller. We will do this even though we did not sell it to him or collect the money for this order. According to his written account, Jonathan deserves, and will receive, a full refund. Though it represents a total loss to us, we believe it is absolutely the right thing to do, and the right thing for Jonathan.

I appreciate that, and I assure you that I will take you up on it if the reseller fails to refund all of my money to me.

Perhaps you are sincere in your desire to do the right thing. Perhaps you are, truly, doing this to protect the fine, well-deserved reputation of your company. I would like to believe this.

However, I’m sorry to say that there is another possible explanation. If everyone who complains about your product gets all their money back, then who’s going to be the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit alleging that you defrauded your customers by selling them a product that doesn’t actually do anything?

This product is NOT, in any way shape or form, a “scam”. It is a product that was awarded two patents from the U.S. Patent Office

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Object does not confirm that the inventions described in patent applications actually work, but rather that they could work if the claims made in the application are accurate. The fact that Marc Smulovitz managed to obtain two patents for his invention (#6,012,308 and #6,612,137, for those who want to read for themselves) indicates only that no one tried before him to patent the idea of using magnets to clean laundry; it has absolutely no bearing on the question of whether magnets actually can clean laundry.

Although magnetically influencing water is a concept somewhat “out of the mainstream” (our patents were some of the first in the field) there has been scientific precedence to support the theory. Although it is fair to challenge theories that are new, different and out of the mainstream, it is exceedingly unfair to call them a “scam”.

No one has denied that magnets can “influence water;” that is a red herring.

Rather, the questions at hand are (a) do wimpy magnets like the ones you sell “influence water” in any significant way, and (b) does whatever “influence” they have on the water actually have any impact on the water’s ability to clean clothes?

Coming full circle: As I noted above, there is a trivially easy experiment you could pay an independent laboratory to do which would prove that the answers to both of those questions is “yes.” The fact that you have not had any laboratory perform that experiment, or indeed the fact that it appears that you did have a laboratory perform that experiment and then concealed the results, suggests that you are fully aware of what the results would be, and that they wouldn’t exactly help to sell your product.

If you prove me wrong, then I will gladly publicly apologize for disputing the efficacy of your product and remove the critical article from my blog.

The “invention” they sell is two magnets encased in rubbery plastic, which you’re supposed to put into your washing machine instead of detergent.  The Web site claims, “Research by Physicist Dr. Hendrick Lorentz shows that with the right magnetic fields, water molecules (H2O) [sic] are made to have similar effects that detergent chemicals do… in other words, they stick to other tiny particles like dirt, and carry them off!”

I was dubious, as you probably are as well.  But Care2 is a pretty reputable site, and the upside of never needing to pay for or use laundry detergent again is pretty high.  Furthermore, I figured that if it was a scam, then I’d have fun performing an experiment to prove it.  So I went ahead and ordered a set of the magnets.

So, what do you think… Is it a scam or isn’t it?  Read on to find out.

Before I tell you the results of my experiment, let me point out some other good reasons to be suspicious:

• There is no independent scientific research on the Web site pertaining to the efficacy of the product.  Under the heading “Clinical Research” on the Web page is not proof that the magnets work, but rather quotes from a 2005 Sierra Club press release about supposedly dangerous chemicals in laundry detergents.  The pamphlet that comes with the product says that it has been “independently proven,” but there is no evidence of this.
• The endorsement logos on the home page (none of which are linked to anything) are:
  • “As Seen On TV” — in other words, “we ran some ads / infomercials”
  • “Mothering Magazine” — but a search of the site turns up no articles about the product, so this certainly also means “we ran some ads on this site”
  • “PRWeb” — anyone can pay to put up a press release on PRWeb, so this means “we paid for a press release”
  • “Care2″ — again, “we ran some ads on this site”
  • “CNN” — there are no search results indicating that CNN ever did a news story about this product, so, once again, “we ran some ads on this site”
  • “LifeScript” — ditto
• The “risk free trial” offered by the site promises that “You’ll have 21 days from today to use the Magnetic Laundry System and experience the results for yourself.”  The company charged my credit card $5.95 for shipping and handling on December 1; they shipped the product to me on December 23; it arrived on December 26; and the company charged my credit card $49.95 on December 27.  Yes, that’s right, my “21 day free trial” involved having the product in my possession for less than one day.
• The research of Dr. Hendrick Lorentz didn’t have anything to do with laundry detergent chemicals.
• Finally, the idea that magnets can substitute for laundry detergent has been thoroughly debunked.

A little digging on the Web reveals that the company which manufactures this product did publish an “independent lab test result,” which you can view here.  You can also view an “As Seen On TV” video evaluation of the product here.  [UPDATE 2010-06-22: The "As Seen on TV" video is no longer available. Perhaps Life Miracle stopped paying the advertising fee for it so they took it off the site?] Here are some problems I found with these:

• The lab report claims, “As is standard for this type of testing, a water control was also run to provide baseline/control data.”  However, the published results include only before/after data for the load run with the magnets, i.e., they do not show how washing laundry with the magnets compares to washing with just water.
• The lab results show only the results of washing in hot water, and the literature that comes with the magnets also says that they work best in hot water.  Of course, some clothing is too delicate to be washed in hot water, and therefore it is important to know how well any laundry product will work in warm or cold water, but we are told nothing about that. (A worthwhile aside: This product claims to be good for the environment because it reduces the need for detergents containing toxic chemicals, but washing all of your laundry in hot water is hardly good for the environment.)
• The video claims that the magnets were more effective on dirt that traditional detergent, but (a) they don’t say what kind of detergent was used, and if I had to guess I’d guess that they used a particularly bad one, and (b) dirt is only one of many kinds of stains that detergents are designed to clean.
• If you watch the video carefully, you will see that the tags on the two shirts they used were different, and therefore that the shirts themselves were different, thus invalidating the entire test.  Also, it’s impossible to tell from the video whether the two shirts were equally dirty to begin with (for some reason, they only give you a good look at one of the two shirts after soiling them).
• In the video, they washed only the shirts in the washing machine.  This means that the magnets were free to move around the drum and bang against the shirt, thus helping to get it clean.  You could accomplish the same thing with a couple of rocks.  They didn’t test for that, nor did they compare washing with the magnets to washing with just water.

Now, here is the experiment I performed:

• Start with three identical, clean, white, cotton undershirts.
• Stain each of them with measured, equal amounts of four different contaminants: ketchup, peanut oil, soy sauce, and dirt.
• Allow the stains to dry overnight.
• Wash each undershirt in a separate load, in hot water, with no extra rinse, in a front-loading washing machine, with four clean towels (to balance the machine and simulate a full load of laundry) of similar size and thickness:
  • Load #1: the two laundry magnets positions on opposite sides of the washing machine drum (vertical axis)
  • Load #2: just water
  • Load #3: 1/3 of a detergent measuring cup of All Free Clear laundry detergent

Here are the results of the experiment:

• All three methods left an extremely obvious ketchup stain.
• All three methods removed most of the soy sauce; it’s hard to say whether any was left on any of the shirts.
• All three methods removed most of the dirt but left some visible smudges.
• The detergent removed the peanut oil completely; there was visible peanut oil left on the shirts washed with the magnets and with just water.
• There was no visible difference in cleanliness between the shirt washed with the magnets and the shirt washed with just water.
• The shirt washed with detergent was visibly cleaner than the shirts washed with the magnets and with just water.

Here are my conclusions:

1. The laundry magnets are useless.
2. Hot water combined with agitation do a pretty good job all by themselves of removing dirt etc.
3. People are using detergent even when they think they aren’t:
   1. Washing machines leave some detergent on clothes even after they are rinsed.  These leftover detergents aid in cleaning the clothes the next time they are washed, even if no new detergent is used.
   2. Most people use too much detergent, because (a) most people are careless about measuring the detergent and (b) the detergent manufacturers tell people to use more than they actually need to get the clothes clean.
   3. The more detergent is used, the more is left behind after the clothes are rinsed.
   4. People who buy these magnets and think that their clothes are being cleaned by them are actually taking advantage of the detergents left behind on the clothes from before they switched to the magnets.
   5. The company selling these magnets is counting on the fact that by the time the detergents are completely washed out (it takes several wash cycles) and it becomes obvious that the magnets are useless, the 90-day money-back guarantee will have expired, and most people will be too lazy to fight with the company to get their money back.
4. The bait-and-switch with the nonexistent “21 day risk free trial” is a conscious, intentional effort by the company selling these magnets to capitalize on the fact that most people are too lazy to complain and and get their money back.

In short, this is a scam, and I plan on doing the following about it:

• Complain to Care2 about allowing this product to be advertised on their Web site. [done]
• Complain to asotv.info about the fact that their test was bogus and their claim that the product works as advertised is false. [done]
• Complain to Shuster Laboratories about the fact that their laboratory evaluation reports published about this product do not actually prove that it works. [done]
• Demand from the company that they refund not only the $49.95, but also the original $5.95 shipping fee and the cost of shipping the magnets back to them if they want them back. [done]
• If they refuse, then file disputes with my credit-card company for both the original shipping charge and the subsequent $49.95 charge. [not needed -- the seller reimbursed both the shipping charge and the charge for the magnets]
• Contact topclassactions.com and others with the suggestion that it might be profitable for an attorney somewhere to pursue a class-action lawsuit against the companies manufacturing and selling this fraudulent product. [done]
• File complaints about deceptive and fraudulent advertising practices with the attorney generals of Massachusetts (where I am located), Pennsylvania (where the company manufacturing the product is located), and Utah (where the company that sold it to me is located). [done]

UPDATE: My response to the comment below from Life Miracle can be found here.

UPDATE: There’s an excellent description here of why the alleged science behind the Magnetic Laundry System is bunk.  It’s excellent because it’s both extremely clear and extremely succinct.  Money quote: “This is just crazy gobbledegook made to sound impressive so people who don’t have any chemistry education will be impressed.”  Follow the link for more.