DupeStack

Retail pack

£3.50300 millilitres

Raw active

Sodium hydroxide pearls 99% (caustic soda)1310-73-2

Another caustic gel with marketing. The attack on polymerised fats is sodium hydroxide. Dissolve caustic soda pearls to about 4% w/v and you get the same chemistry without the trigger-bottle tax.

Retail pack

£4.00500 millilitres

Raw active

Sodium hydroxide pearls 99% (caustic soda)1310-73-2

The bag is theatre. The gel is dilute sodium hydroxide. Caustic soda pearls at about 40 g/L make the same 4% attack on burnt fats. Corrosive — this is not a toy, and it is not a lemon-scented miracle.

Retail pack

£1.25320 ml bottle

Raw active

SLES 70% paste (sodium laureth sulphate)68585-34-2

Fairy is mostly water and SLES — the workhorse anionic surfactant in almost every UK washing-up bottle. A 25 kg drum of SLES 70% paste dilutes to hundreds of litres of 2% working liquor. You are paying for the green bottle and the scent, not a proprietary molecule.

Retail pack

£4.50500 millilitres

Raw active

Benzalkonium chloride (BAC 50)68424-85-1

Zoflora’s biocide is benzalkonium chloride at about 1.87% — the same quat family as Patio Magic, sold as a scented kitchen concentrate. A 1:40 dilute is about 470 ppm BAC. One millilitre of BAC 50 in a litre of water lands in that working band; the perfume and ethanol are the brand, not the kill.

Retail pack

£24.00100 m² box

Raw active

Agricultural soluble iron(II) sulphate heptahydrate7782-63-0

The moss-blackening punch is ferrous sulphate — the same agricultural iron used on bowling greens. The 4-in-1 box is mostly filler, NPK dust and a brand. Buy the salt.

Retail pack

£16.004 litres

Raw active

Didecyldimethylammonium chloride (DDAC 50)7173-51-5

This is not old Jeyes Fluid (tar acids are gone). Patio Power is 1.75% DDAC — a twin-chain quat, not the benzalkonium in Patio Magic. Dilute DDAC 50 to about 0.35% and you have the same working spray as the 4 L bottle mixed 1+4.

Retail pack

£6.50800 millilitres

Raw active

Refined rapeseed oil emulsified to 17 g/L8002-13-9

BugClear Fruit & Veg Ultra is rapeseed oil at 17 g/L (CAS 8002-13-9) — a contact oil suffocant, not acetamiprid (BugClear Ultra concentrate) and not deltamethrin. Nineteen millilitres of refined rapeseed oil made up to a litre with a drop of washing-up liquid matches the trigger. It is not a neurotoxin and it will scorch oil-shy plants.

Retail pack

£3.50250 millilitres

Raw active

Citric acid monohydrate (food grade)5949-29-1

The liquid Service-it bottle is 5–10% citric acid — a kettle descaler poured into an empty drum. Food-grade citric at about 75 g/L is the same heater-and-door-seal wash without the 250 ml appliance-aisle tax. This is not the powder Deep Clean (that is percarbonate — see Vanish).

Retail pack

£3.50500 millilitres

Raw active

Hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD)128446-35-5

The odour trap in Febreze fabric spray is hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (CAS 128446-35-5) at about 1% — a sugar ring that hosts smelly molecules. The television advert is the perfume. A 1% cyclodextrin wipe is the same host chemistry without the Unstopables tax. It is not a disinfectant and it is not bicarbonate in a trigger.

Retail pack

£3.50750 millilitres

Raw active

Citric acid monohydrate (food grade)5949-29-1

Hard-water scale is calcium carbonate. Citric acid dissolves it. The trigger bottle is perfume and a nozzle; a bag of food-grade citric acid is the same attack on the kettle, the head and the pan.

Retail pack

£34.005 litres

Raw active

Benzalkonium chloride (BAC 50)68424-85-1

A dilute quaternary ammonium biocide sold as a lifestyle patio product. The active is commodity BAC 50; the brand is paying for the trigger bottle and the television advert.

Retail pack

£8.491 litre

Raw active

Glyphosate IPA salt concentrate 360 g/L38641-94-0

Pathclear RTU is glyphosate at about 0.46 g/L in a trigger bottle. The same working strength comes from 13 ml of 360 g/L glyphosate concentrate per litre of water — pennies per litre versus £8.49 for the branded RTU.