The dry and liquid split
On this page8
In the regulation
Ten percent free alkali in a dry form against two percent in anything else. Five times the latitude for the same ingredient.
In the taxonomy
Laundry powder and scent booster sit on the bulk archetype: 1000 to 8000 mL, wide mouth, because the product is scooped. Detergent and softener sit on the pour archetype: 950 to 4000 mL, narrow neck, with a spout or a plain closure.
That split was wrong until recently
All four were on the bulk archetype, whose own note reads "Powder and detergent bought by the season. Large, wide enough for a scoop." The wide mouth requirement it carries for a powder was excluding the narrow neck F-style jugs a liquid detergent actually ships in. Corrected on 17 October 2026.
In the container
A powder wants a mouth wide enough to put a scoop into and to tip from without a cloud. A liquid wants a neck narrow enough to control a pour and a closure that does not drip down the side.
In the freight
A liquid is mostly water and water is heavy. A powder at the same number of washes weighs a fraction of it, which is why the concentrated and powdered end of this category is the part that can be shipped to a consumer at a sane price.
And in the failure modes
A liquid leaks and a powder cakes. The container problems are not variations of each other, and a maker moving from one format to the other is learning a new set of them.
Which is why doing both is two products
Not one product in two formats. Two formulas, two archetypes, two thresholds, two container families and two label layouts, sharing a brand and very little else.