A cleaner wash, a smaller footprint: the next generation of anti-greying solutions.
Laundry detergents are changing. Across both consumer and industrial markets, formulators are working to improve wash performance while at the same time reducing environmental impact.
Even with modern machines, better detergents, and improved textiles, issues like greying, redeposition, and fabric dullness persist. At the same time, expectations around sustainability have risen sharply. This is driving a closer look at long-established, fossil-based ingredients, and whether they can be replaced with solutions that deliver the same function with a better lifecycle profile.
One ingredient group gaining renewed attention is anti-greying agents. Once a quiet workhorse in detergent formulations, they are now part of a broader effort to extend textile lifetime, reduce waste, and support lower-carbon product portfolios.
Fabric greying is mainly caused by redeposition. During washing, soil, dirt, dyes, and fine particles are released from textiles. If these particles are not kept well dispersed, they can settle back onto the fabric surface.
This challenge becomes especially visible in:
Anti-redeposition (or anti-greying) agents work by keeping soil particles suspended in the wash liquor, allowing them to be rinsed away instead of reattaching to the fabric.
For decades, polycarboxylates have been widely used to control greying and redeposition. They are effective, but they are also fossil-based and come with a relatively high CO₂ footprint.
Today, regulatory pressure, internal sustainability targets, and growing interest in circular economy solutions are pushing detergent innovation in a new direction. Formulators are increasingly looking for alternatives that can deliver on three key requirements at the same time:
Upcycling – turning industrial side streams into valuable functional ingredients – has become a key part of this search.
A new generation of bio-based and bio-circular polymers is now entering the market. These materials are designed to match the performance of traditional polycarboxylates while delivering much better sustainability metrics.
Rather than replacing existing technology overnight, they represent a natural step forward: maintaining wash performance, while better aligning detergent formulations with long-term climate and resource goals.
One example of this shift can be found in commercial laundry formulations using lignin-based, bio-circular anti-redeposition agents.
LignoBrite is one such ingredient. Developed by Borregaard, it is an ISCC PLUS bio-circular1 certified and upcycled2 lignin biopolymer developed for anti-greying performance. Independent lifecycle analysis shows that replacing polycarboxylates with LignoBrite on a 1:1 basis can reduce CO₂ emissions by around 70%3, while maintaining equivalent anti-redeposition performance.
Image: Kiilto's Pro Textile Wash.
This is already visible in the market. Kiilto's Pro Textile Wash is the world’s first laundry powder using a lignin biopolymer as its anti-greying technology. The company highlights the innovation directly on its product webpage and reports that the solution “maintains textile whiteness and reduces greying while contributing to a significantly lower CO₂ footprint.”
These early examples show that sustainable chemistry can be integrated into demanding industrial applications – without compromising wash quality.
Upcycled polymers fit naturally into broader sustainability strategies. By converting biorefinery side streams into high-value functional materials, they reduce reliance on fossil resources and support circular economy principles.
For laundry detergents, this shift brings multiple benefits: improved lifecycle performance, credible sustainability claims backed by certification, and better protection of textiles over repeated wash cycles. As brands increasingly look for measurable and verifiable improvements, bio-circular anti-greying agents offer a practical and proven path forward.
Anti-redeposition agents are no longer just functional helpers. They are becoming important tools for reducing CO₂ footprints and increasing the share of renewable carbon in detergent formulations.
Early adopters using lignin-based technology in industrial laundry powders show that these solutions are no longer experimental. They are commercially proven –and already in use.
If you're exploring bio-circular anti-greying and anti-redeposition solutions or want to benchmark them against your current system, our technical team can support with data, screening guidance, or sample evaluation:
1 Lignin-based biopolymers from Borregaard Sarpsborg
2 Following European Investment Bank (EIB) definition (The European Investment Bank (EIB) Circular Economy Guide (https://www.eib.org/files/publications/thematic/circular_economy_guide_en.pdf))
3 100% (Lignin-based biopolymers for HPC) and 99% (Exilva) bio-based carbon based on ASTM D6866-18 Method B