Prism99

I don't use Synthrapol in my HE washer. My washer uses so little water (and no way to adjust that), it will not dilute a bad bleed enough. I take my quilts to the local laundromat for their first wash. I use the large front loader there (because front loaders are easier on a quilt than machines with central agitators). Their large one uses plenty of water so I have no fear of a bad bleed not getting diluted. Synthrapol can only do so much. It suspends unset dye particles in the water, but there needs to be enough water for it to work. I was not aware of the newer low-foaming Synthrapol that PaperPrincess mentioned and have not tried it. Maybe that would work in a domestic front loader (because you could use more of it without damaging the machine) but I would still be concerned about insufficient water for diluting a bad bleed.

Edit: I just want to mention that, for those quilters who have never had a problem using a domestic front-loader, this can be because no fabrics bled (or the bleeds were very mild). A heavily-bleeding fabric does not happen often but, when it does, you really want to have lots of water to dilute that bleed to ensure the dye particles do not transfer to other fabrics.