Beco vs Surf Excel: The Detergent Debate India Needed. But There’s More to the Story.
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If you've been online recently, you may have seen Beco taking on Surf Excel.
And as someone building a cleaning brand myself, I have to say something I don't get to say very often about a competitor:
I'm glad they did it.
Beco's #WarOnWhatsHidden campaign has started a conversation that the cleaning industry in India probably needed.
For decades, we've bought detergent based on fairly simple questions.
Does it remove stains?
Does it smell good?
How much does it cost?
Very few of us ever turned the bottle around and asked:
What's actually inside the detergent I'm washing my clothes with?
And perhaps more importantly, do we need to rethink the detergent itself?
That's where things get interesting.
So, what exactly happened between Beco and Surf Excel?
Beco recently launched a campaign called #WarOnWhatsHidden, comparing its laundry liquid with Surf Excel Matic Liquid.
As part of the campaign, Beco says it commissioned independent testing from NABL-accredited laboratories. According to Beco, its testing detected Benzisothiazolinone (BIT) and Linear Alkylbenzene Sulfonate (LAS) in the Surf Excel sample it tested.
Beco has raised questions about these ingredients and their potential to cause irritation or allergic reactions in some circumstances.
Hindustan Unilever, the company behind Surf Excel, strongly disputes the implications being drawn from those findings.
HUL's argument is important too. Finding an ingredient in a product, it says, does not automatically establish that the finished product is unsafe or will cause irritation when used normally.
The disagreement has now reached the courts.
At the time of writing, there has been no judicial finding that Surf Excel is unsafe, nor has the court decided the merits of Beco's claims.
So I'm not here to tell you who's right in that fight.
I'm interested in something else entirely.
Beco asked a very good question.
What's hidden inside your detergent?
I think consumers deserve to ask that.
But at Klevay, the question that led us down a completely different path was:
Why does detergent still need to be a big bottle of liquid in the first place?
Think about it.
We have reinvented how we order food, pay for things, listen to music, book a cab and even buy groceries.
And then you walk into the laundry area and there's still a giant detergent bottle.
You open the cap.
Pour what looks about right.
Pour a little more because you're not sure.
Some of it drips down the bottle.
Then you put the giant bottle back on the shelf.
We've somehow just accepted that this is what doing laundry looks like.
We didn't want to make another bottle.
We wanted to get rid of the bottle.
That's why we built Klevay Laundry Detergent Sheets
A Klevay detergent sheet is essentially your detergent in a lightweight, pre-measured sheet.
Take a sheet.
Put it directly into your washing machine.
Add your clothes.
Done.
It dissolves in water and releases the cleaning formula into the wash.
No pouring.
No measuring.
No detergent spills.
No giant bottle taking up space.
And because the cleaning formula is concentrated into a sheet, we're not selling you a bottle filled predominantly with liquid just so you can transport it home.
But convenience alone wasn't enough for us.
If we were going to rethink the format, we wanted to rethink the formula too.
What's inside Klevay?
Our laundry sheets use plant-based ingredients and surfactants, together with an enzyme-enabled cleaning system.
They're dermatologically tested and formulated without:
- Phosphates
- Parabens
- Bleaching agents
- Optical brighteners
- Chlorine
- Added dyes
Our fragrance is IFRA-compliant, and we've designed the formula to work across front-load machines, top-load machines and even bucket washes.
It is also formulated for the kind of hard-water conditions you commonly encounter across Indian cities.
But there's another difference I'm particularly proud of.
Klevay is 3-in-1
When we were developing Klevay, we didn't see much sense in replacing one laundry product with another and then asking you to buy two more.
So our sheet combines:
Detergent + Fabric Softener + Water Softener
in one format.
One sheet goes into the machine.
That's it.
A pack of 30 Klevay sheets can deliver up to 60 washes, depending on load size and soiling.
For a regular load, half a sheet can be enough. For a larger or dirtier load, use a full sheet.
It's detergent without the chemistry experiment every time you do laundry.
Beco vs Surf Excel vs Klevay: what's actually different?
There is an important distinction here.
Surf Excel and Beco are competing over what should go inside a better liquid detergent.
We agree that ingredients matter.
But Klevay started one step earlier.
We asked whether it needed to be liquid at all.
| Conventional Liquid Detergent | Beco Laundry Liquid | Klevay Laundry Sheets | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Format | Liquid | Liquid | Sheet |
| Pre-measured | No | No | Yes |
| Measuring/pouring required | Yes | Yes | No |
| Bulky detergent bottle | Yes | Yes* | No |
| Plant-based positioning | Varies by product | Yes | Yes |
| Dermatologically tested | Varies by product | Check specific product | Yes |
| Enzyme-powered | Varies by product | Yes | Yes |
| 3-in-1 detergent + fabric softener + water softener | Varies | No stated 3-in-1 claim | Yes |
| Travel-friendly | Not really | Not really | Yes |
| Front load + top load + bucket wash | Varies by variant | Variant-specific | Yes |
*Beco also sells larger refill formats, so packaging varies by SKU.
The point isn't that every liquid detergent is bad.
It isn't.
The point is that we now have alternatives.
"Natural", "chemical-free" and "non-toxic" are words we should all be careful with
There's something else this Beco-Surf Excel conversation has highlighted.
Cleaning brands, including newer brands like ours, need to be responsible with the language we use.
Everything is made of chemicals.
Something being "natural" doesn't automatically make it safe, and something having a complicated chemical name doesn't automatically make it dangerous.
Concentration matters.
Exposure matters.
The complete formulation matters.
How the product is actually used matters.
That's why I'd rather tell you exactly what Klevay contains, what we've chosen to leave out and what testing we've done than scare you with the name of an ingredient.
You deserve information, not fear.
And frankly, I think that's where the cleaning industry needs to go next.
The bigger question isn't Beco vs Surf Excel
For me, that's the most interesting part of this whole debate.
It would be very easy to turn this into:
Surf Excel vs Beco.
Old brand vs new brand.
Conventional vs plant-based.
But I think the bigger shift happening in laundry is much more fundamental.
Consumers are beginning to ask:
What am I paying for?
What's actually in this product?
How much detergent do I actually need?
Why am I transporting and storing bulky bottles?
Can this be made simpler?
Those are exactly the questions that led us to build Klevay.
Maybe the detergent bottle itself is what's outdated
I don't think the future of cleaning is another shelf filled with ten different bottles, each solving one tiny problem.
I think the future is simpler.
Smaller.
Concentrated.
Pre-measured.
Easy to understand.
Easy to store.
Easy to travel with.
And designed around how people actually live today.
That's what we're trying to build at Klevay.
We're still a young company. We're going to keep learning, testing and improving our products.
But one principle isn't going to change:
Cleaning should not require a chemistry degree or a cupboard full of plastic bottles.
Beco has started an important conversation about what's inside our cleaning products.
I'd like to take that conversation one step further.
If you're questioning what's inside your detergent, maybe it's time to question the detergent bottle too.
Rohit
Co-founder, Klevay
Frequently Asked Questions
Are laundry detergent sheets better than liquid detergent?
It depends on what you value. Liquid detergents can clean effectively, but detergent sheets offer significant convenience advantages. They're pre-measured, compact, lightweight and don't require pouring from a bulky bottle. Klevay sheets additionally combine detergent, fabric softener and water softener in one product.
What is the Beco vs Surf Excel controversy?
Beco's #WarOnWhatsHidden campaign says independent laboratory testing detected BIT and LAS in a sample of Surf Excel Matic Liquid. Beco has raised concerns about these ingredients. HUL disputes the implications of Beco's campaign and has initiated legal proceedings. At the time of writing, the court has not ruled that Surf Excel is unsafe or decided the substantive merits of the competing claims.
Does Klevay contain plant-based ingredients?
Yes. Klevay Laundry Detergent Sheets are formulated using plant-based ingredients and surfactants as part of their concentrated cleaning formula.
Are Klevay detergent sheets dermatologically tested?
Yes. Klevay Laundry Detergent Sheets are dermatologically tested and formulated without phosphates, parabens, bleaching agents, optical brighteners and chlorine.
Do detergent sheets work in Indian washing machines?
Klevay Laundry Detergent Sheets are designed for front-load and top-load washing machines and can also be used for bucket washing. The formula is designed to work across common Indian water conditions, including hard water.
How many washes are there in one Klevay pack?
A 30-sheet Klevay pack provides up to 60 washes. The amount required depends on your load size and how heavily soiled your clothes are.
Are Klevay detergent sheets good for travel?
This is one of the biggest advantages of the format. Instead of carrying detergent liquid or powder, you can carry lightweight detergent sheets. There's no risk of a detergent bottle leaking inside your luggage.
Klevay vs Beco: what's the difference?
Both brands approach laundry differently from conventional detergents. Beco currently offers plant-based laundry detergent in liquid form, while Klevay concentrates its detergent into pre-measured dissolvable sheets. Klevay's proposition combines the formulation with a different format designed around convenience, storage and portability.
By Rohit Agarwal, Co-founder, Klevay.