Find Some DNase in the USA

As I’ve mentioned in Reddit comments over the last several months, I’m tired of the quirks of 365 Sport detergent - plant-based detergents always come with a set of compromises and my willingness to fix the chemistry weaknesses of 365 Sport in my water (soft) and my interest level in “perfectly clean textiles” (high to a frankly concerning level) is waning because of the continued lack of availability and poor “universality” - other people are having to work harder than I do to get it to work in slightly harder water, top loading machines, higher soil burdens - anything far off my ideal-ish setup falls off quickly and the price per load skyrockets.  The juice isn’t worth the squeeze.  Which is surprising, because I truly think DNase is the biggest advance in home laundry in decades, and I’ve gone to decent lengths to use it. 

 The main reason I’m less willing to put up with 365 Sport is that the market has provided more viable DNase sources in North America.   When I started using 365 Sport, the options were Dirty Labs booster that had a wicked dissolution problem, 365 Sport, ordering Garame GearGuard from the Antipodes or going without.  That has changed.    Let’s take a look at the alternatives, their pluses and minuses, and how you can incorporate this enzyme, with peer-reviewed research into its efficacy, into your laundry routine without having to stalk a Whole Foods aisle on the regular.  But first, a review of why you need DNase.   

Getting Out Of A Sticky Situation: 

DNase is a shorthand for Deoxyribonuclease, which also appears on labels as nuclease and phosphodiesterase.    It’s an enzyme - a biochemical that attacks a very specific target and breaks it into smaller subunits for easier removal in the washing process.  DNase targets extracellular DNA aka eDNA - meaning DNA that has left the cell nucleus and ended up somewhere it doesn’t belong.  Essentially all living cells carry some amount of DNA, and there are various ways the DNA content of those cells ends up on your textiles.  Sometimes it’s because the cells get physically ground in to the fiber.  Sometimes it’s because bacteria or fungi get killed and rupture, and their eDNA remains on the textiles.  The most common way, though, is that humans and animals excrete eDNA in skin oils and the oily component of certain kinds of sweat.     All textiles worn by humans eventually accumulate eDNA.  Conventional detergent removes about 30% of eDNA burden, which leads to serial buildup. 

eDNA itself is an off-beige goo of exceptional stickiness - stickier than honey or molasses by far - more like uncured caulking or duct tape residue.  So you can get a primary discoloration from this, especially on white fabrics.     But the real problem with eDNA, per industry-sponsored research, is that it acts as an adhesive and protectant for other soils - it attracts other things to its sticky surface, and isolates them from the effects of detergents, oxidizers and other enzyme classes, and then a fresh layer of eDNA gets applied during the next wear, resulting in layers of retained soil and eDNA in a hard-to-dissolve matrix.  This sticky goo can also collect inside yarns - for cellulosic fibers this just retains dirt and odor.   But for synthetic fibers that rely on the combo of fiber shape and being water-repellent to offer sweat wicking, this goo gums up the channels that make the moisture transport possible, resulting in failing wicking performance over time. 

So while eDNA is not the sole cause of odor, texture, color and performance defects in aging textiles, it’s one that doesn’t get targeted well by other chemistry, no matter how optimized.  Once you’ve got everything else right (and I can’t emphasize the importance of this enough - DNase doesn’t fix bad wash chemistry), DNase is a bonus round that can truly make a difference you can feel, smell and see. 

Washing with DNase tends to improve removal by a little more than 100%, so the removal rate exceeds the deposition rate.  Industry claims are that it takes five to six washes to see the full effect of removal, which is roughly consistent with my experience with using DNase products - a big boost in the first wash, incremental improvement through the next handful, and then maintenance washing keeps them remarkable.   For aging white cotton dress shirts and tees, the effect is like a time machine - textiles age in reverse.  For polyester golf and athletic apparel, the difference in feel and smell is nothing less than magical - they feel factory new again, with that softer drape and better sweat handling.  

The effect on darker fabrics is more subtle in terms of appearance - I don’t notice my items looking more vibrant in the way that oxygen bleach, good anti-redeposition chemistry and optical brightener can light them up, but they feel more like new and smell fantastic.     

DNase works in the wash by targeting a vulnerable chemical bond on the eDNA - the fragments are more vulnerable than intact eDNA to the other ingredients in the detergent and then to mechanical action that washes the goo off.  So I have not seen any evidence that soaking or handwashing is improved with DNase.  It’s the penetrating oil on a rusty bolt - you still need the mechanical force of the wrench to break things loose.  It’s one reason Spa Day doesn’t call for adding DNase - all of the research has involved typical international-style front-loading washer cycles - long, mechanically active, conventional washing.   My hunch is that no hand washing process adds enough mechanical energy to make the improvement.   

Here's a video from Novonesis demonstrating how, while eDNA is a small part of soil burden, it plays this outsized role keeping soils on fabrics, and how DNase (which they generally refer to as phosphodiesterase) attacks the glue.

How To Get Unstuck: 

Your options are in the detergent or an added booster.   

The USA detergent choices have expanded a bit:   

• 365 Sport Detergent by Whole Foods 

• Dad Mode Detergent 

• Blueland PowerDuo Tablets 

• Aunt Fannie’s Extra-Strength Laundry Detergent 

• Miele UltraColor Floralboost Liquid  Detergent (very limited availability) 

Every single one of these has at least one Achilles Heel that makes them finicky, not universally acceptable or downright bad.   All but the Miele are based on plant-based surfactants which raises the cost per unit of cleaning power substantially over petrochemical-based surfactants.  You have to use more or supplement them with conventional-surfactant products to get good to great primary cleaning results.     Anyone who tries to sell you liquid detergent that says you need less than 3mL per kg of textiles is a charlatan.  Solids, it’s more like 5 grams at the low end.  They’re doing it to make their cost per load look competitive with Tide, not because it’s the right amount for your problems.   In recent independent testing, there was a pretty linear increase in soil removal across the board by doubling the dose of 365 Sport - it’s not that the agents couldn’t remove certain types of soils - it’s that the dose on the label based on the concentration in the jug is just comically low.  I formerly fixed it by adding Biz powder to get synthetic surfactant.  Other people are fixing plant-based products with a slug of Tide Free & Gentle liquid.  Your detergent shouldn’t need another detergent.  Plant based liquids also tend to have extremely poor water softening capabilities due to restrictions on use of certain synthetic ingredients and cost constraints, which should raise alarms for launderers with hard water or conventional top load machines, barring use of a plumbed-in softener.



Blueland has probably fixed their well-publicized former dissolution problems with this new tableting system - it’s much more likely to dissolve without human intervention.  Again, though, surfactants are mild and low on the list and the tablets are comparatively small.



DadMode and Miele are both highly fragranced products, an intensely personal characteristic. 

Aunt Fannie’s core formula is "Yet Another Water Softener With A Whisper Of Expensive Plant Surfactant Powdered Green Detergent".   You won’t find it in my laundry room, ever. 

So maybe getting your DNase from detergent alone is a fool’s errand at this point because of the compromises inherent in the detergents’ formulae. 

Enter boosters. 

Currently, there’s sort of three genres of booster that contain DNase: 

1. Oxygen bleach + DNAse 

2. Minimalist DNase liquid 

3. Non-Bleach Solids  

Group 1 has become a crowded category with three new entrants in the last year:   

• FEBU Enzyme Oxygen Laundry Booster 

• Dirty Labs Bio-Enzyme Laundry Booster 

• Everneat Bright Oxygen Bleach 

• DadMode Heavy Duty Laundry Booster 

All four have the color-safe bleaching agent sodium percarbonate as an active ingredient, same as found in OxiClean, Biz, Clorox 2 powders and most powdered laundry detergents sold by P&G in North America.   Sodium percarbonate has direct stain and odor removal effects, it likely contributes to machine hygiene and it’s highly biodegradable.      The challenge with percarbonate is that it’s high pH and not suitable for every load.  I don’t personally use percarbonate on animal fibers like wool, cashmere and silk.  There’s also substantial division in r/laundry on the effects of percarbonate on colored and dark textiles.  I personally think it’s a net positive for darks because of the odor removal and chlorine neutralization benefits.  Others believe it increases fading.  I’m currently washing 284 loads of darks to get some data either way, but for now, know that there’s controversy about just how universally appropriate percarbonate is for darker loads. 

The differences between the products are more than skin deep, though - they solve problems in different ways and have greater or lesser reliance on water temperature and the companion detergent to cover all the possible laundry bases.  So here’s a comparison chart.  Remember, they all have oxygen bleach, some precipitating water softener (as a process aid and performance enhancer) and DNase.

Enzymes: the other six laundry enzymes matter if three things apply:  you have soils that are sensitive to them, you have fabrics that tolerate them and you’re not covering them in your detergent.  Briefly protease targets proteins, amylase targets starches and sugars, lipase targets non-petroleum oils, mannanase targets thickeners in things like salad dressing and ice cream, pectate lyase targets fruit and vegetable stains, and cellulase targets damaged cotton fibers to rinse out fine lint that collects dust and optical brightener as well as visible fuzz.   As a rule, they’re great in all loads except animal fibers which need to avoid protease, but most detergents have one or more.  Doubling up doesn’t hurt, but if you’re getting it elsewhere it’s not adding anything.   

Surfactants: They’re already in the detergent.  Getting slightly different ones in your booster may improve performance.  The Laureth-7 in DadMode is a good surfactant as plant-based products go, but it’s also very easy to control surfactant levels by varying your detergent dose. 

Fragrance: personal preference 

TAED: TAED dramatically increases the stain and odor removal capacity of a given amount of percarbonate, especially at lowish American wash temperatures (under 107F-ish), by turning the dissolved hydrogen peroxide that breaks off percarbonate into peracetic acid, a more powerful oxidizer.   At the same time, it makes percarbonate riskier if it doesn’t dissolve completely, and it has a whiff of its own during the wash process that evaporates on drying.   I like TAED and I’m very careful with it to never let dry powders that contain TAED linger on damp textiles.  If you’re of the belief that in-wash oxidizers contribute to fading of darks, you have to ask if the peracetic acid formed by percarbonate, water and TAED is better or worse than percarbonate and water alone.  I don’t have that answer and it’s not in my wash series to answer.  Yet. 

Polyitaconic Acid Salts:  these are biopolymers that have been wedded to zinc salts to neutralize sulfurous odors like the degraded proteins in sweat and other human / pet emissions.  They’re effective, highly biodegradable, skin-compatible and genuinely an incremental improver. 

Sequestrant Water Softeners:  these lock up calcium and magnesium in wash water to improve cleaning performance without increasing the risk of residue like precipitating softeners.  In a booster product they’re going to both get what’s in the wash, and, with what carries over to the rinse, help with rinse water hardness to some extent.  There is reasonable published evidence that these sequestrants specifically help prevent odor rebloom from sebum residues left on textiles.  So it’s another line of defense.  Most powdered detergents don’t use citrate chemistry - they use other chelators to get the same effects, so this could be of incremental benefit to both powder and liquid users. 

 There is a potential fifth competitor here:  Defunkify’s Odor & Stain Removing Laundry Booster.  The problem is, I can’t get a consistent answer on what’s in it.  Their SDS, package and marketing materials don’t agree.  If they’d like to get their shit together and provide consistent ingredient disclosures between the package, the website, the SDS and their third-party ingredient disclosure site, I’d be delighted to include them, but I honestly can’t tell which version is the truth.  This has been an ongoing issue for over a year; I’ve had multiple email exchanges with customer support and looked at the physical packages on two different occasions trying to read the tea leaves.  It shouldn’t be that complicated to figure out what goes in the stuff that touches your skin.  Hence their omission for now. 

Dirty Labs has solved their previous dissolution problems according to recent comments in r/Laundry and a very cogent, candid explanation by one of their formulators. 

 Group 2 is a field of two:  Garame Cleaning Company’s GearGuard and GearGuard Advanced liquids.  They’re water, enzyme and a few parts per million of a preservative to protect against microbial growth in manufacture, shipping and storage.  GearGuard is DNase solo, GearGuard Advanced is DNase and lipase.   They’re safe for any water-washable fabric, they have no fragrance or oxygen bleach, they don’t shift pH but they cover one or two enzyme gaps.   

 Group 3 is a field of one at the present.  Dropps makes their Odor Eraser Laundry Additive pods.  They’re precipitating water softener, the same polyitaconic zinc salts as some of the Group 1 products, fragrance and an “proprietary odor fighter” that is most likely a plant source antioxidant.    The pH is higher than I would trust on wool, silk and cashmere, but this product doesn’t contain an oxidizer.  They do expect the rest of your enzyme needs to come from the detergent.  These only come in pod form. 

 The Future of DNase: 

Novonesis, the Danish biotech that makes the most common DNase used in laundry has just introduced a bunch of new liquid enzyme premixes that include DNase, so if I’m reading the tea leaves right here, there’s likely going to be more liquid detergents coming down the pike with DNase built in, including some that may have just subtilisin+DNase, trending towards an economy formulation.   



How To Decide: 

All of these products likely deliver an effective dose of DNase at their label instructions (it takes a truly tiny amount - single-digit milligrams per wash load).  It’s what else they bring to the party (or leave behind) that distinguishes them. Pick and choose which makes the most sense for the gaps you need to cover.     

Pricing is variable as hell, but let’s take a look based on today (August 2026) pricing, using the instruction-label dose per load, in increasing order of delivered price from the manufacturer website for as close as possible to 100 medium wash loads.   I priced without using subscription incentives.  I included the 365 Sport and DadMode detergents as a booster option - at the label doses for small to medium loads, you likely get enough enzyme to handle larger loads (because of the nature of how enzymes work, presence and time are a bigger factor than dose), and using them this way with some conventional-surfactant detergent for cleaning power has been successful for many Redditors.    

What I Use In My Laundry: 

For what it’s worth, I am completely done with 365 Sport when the present jug runs out.  I personally don’t care about plant-based vs petrochemical surfactants from a safety or environmental perspective, a topic I’ll cover in way more depth in the upcoming installment of my explainers about detergent ingredients.   Amazon/WFM has had plenty of time to increase supply to match demand and their shelf space, and it’s not a great enough product to deal with the hassle. For a few months,  I’ve been using a conventional-surfactant liquid off the Lipase List that did well in Jeeves’ testing, and using Gear Guard or Febu as my mood dictates.  I’ve been using GearGuard consistently on animal fibers for a year or so, now pairing it with a Nopa Nordic-sourced wool wash (Eco Freude from Rossmann, very similar to Steamery Delicates).