Clorox claims it “removes bodysoil that detergents leave behind”.
Do detergents leave things behind? (Besides discoloration stains)
Is “body soil” a different kind of soil, or really just like any ordinary soil that stains (berries, grass, mud)
Are you sure it doesn’t remove your “body’s oil”?
I stand corrected. This from their website:
I’ve never heard the phrase “body soil.”
You haven’t seen their obnoxious body soil ads?
Here is clorox’s take on it.
No, thanks to my trusty TiVo, I see a lot of TV and very, very few commercials.
And this thread makes me glad 
Body soil has always been with us and always will, Clorox or no. I don’t know if Clorox gets rid of it or not, but they do make us paranoid about it, don’t they? Body soil, IIRC from their commercials, consists of things like dead skin cells and sweat. When you really stop to think about it, those things are in much more than your clothes and sheets. They’re on your couch, your chair at work, your carpet … everywhere! There is even body soil floating around in the air in dust. You’ve probably got your body soil and others’ body soil on you right now. Oh, the horror! But, the truth is, body soil has never killed anyone. It’s just a clever way for Clorox to try to sell us their product by telling us what dirty, dirty people we are. When in reality, we’re already really clean, what with our antibacterial soaps and daily showers.
“Body soil” looks to have meaning to the folks who write detergent patents:
Process for making carboxyalkylated alkyl polyether surfactants with narrow polyethoxy chain distribution
It probably refers to yellowing and ring around the collar type stains caused by sweat, oil, and dead skin cells.
Do you suppose that people will take “body soil” for granted 35 years from now, thanks to Clorox, like the good people at Wisk inserted “Ring Around the Collar” into the public consciousness?
Clorox lately seems to be taking a “turn everyone into germophobes” stance when it comes to their advertising. It’s bleach. It bleaches stuff. Bleach is good at killing bacteria, regardless of how necessary you may or may not feel that that is. The end.
Body soil would be a fine euphemism for our old friend Mr. Poo and his fellow-travelers, such as the ubiquitous killer bacterium E. coli, which Clorox could presumably whomp the piss out of.
That’s usually called night soil.
But… but… there are so many bacteria. I mean, anything is bound to kill some bacteria. So “kills bacteria on contact” is not much of a claim, is it? (Oh, I’m probably mixing up advertising slogans, huh?) Pretty much everything is “anti-bacterial” in some sense or other, right?
According to Proctor & Gamble, “body soil” is sweat and sebum.
It makes sense that detergent alone might leave some traces of sebum behind that added bleach would loosen.
Ground-in oils might well cling to the fibre in small amounts. Add a strong alkali (like bleach) and that oil is going to saponify. (Turn into soap.) This will rapidly go into solution and be easily rinsed out.
With a soap/detergent you basically are creating an emulsion of oil in water. Not as good for getting oils right out of the fibre, but in most cases the trace amounts (if any) left behind aren’t going to be noticible.
Claiming that bleach helps to get sebum out of fabric seems pretty reasonable. I doubt that it’s going to be make much difference for regular laundry, but a nasty stained undershirt or a white kerchief that’s used to wipe the sweat from your face all day as you labour is going to get cleaner with bleach, obviously.
If you bathe, you get rid of “ody soil” it consists of sweat, skin cells, a little non harmful bacteria and any dirt you may have accumulated over time.
A washing machine and detergent do fine. Clorex™ implys that for colored clothing, Clorex 2™ removes it. This is a totally false claim. C2 has no germ fighting properties. In fact, I’m not sure that it does much on any level.
I hate those commercials, not just for being misleading, but for fear mongering.
Civil Guy Bleach is a good bacteriocide, it may or may not kill viruses, like hepatitis B or C. The bleach alternative is not a bacteriocide.
There are lots of bacteria all around us in our daily lives, but, you’re not dead. You’ve lived with them your entire life. You don’t suppose they’re just waiting for the right moment to attack, do you? 
Oh, I’m sure they are, the little bastards. But I’m ready for them, oh, yes! I made myself a liiiiiiiittle teeny tiny flyswatter.
Do you have a cite for Clorox claiming otherwise? Their website is very careful not to make any such claim:
According to that, they reserve the “body soil” and “disinfectant” claims for chlorine bleach. Clorox 2’s main active ingredient is sodium perborate, which is a nice stable chemical which quickly generates hydrogen peroxide in water. Hydrogen peroxide is dandy for many types of stain removal and general “brightening,” and the claims made for Clorox 2 seem entirely reasonable.
Also from their website, it looks like they consider “body soil” to be “dead skin, sweat, body oils and other odor-causing residues.” The claim that washing with bleach gets rid of stuff that detergent leaves behind is entirely reasonable.
It’s also entirely reasonable to ask “So what?” In most cases, regular detergent does just fine. Sometimes you need bleach to keep the nasty underarm stains at bay.
Yes, advertising that blatantly plays on people’s insecurity by exaggerating trivial crap is pernicious and offensive to intelligent people. “B.O.” started out as an advertising gimmick. (Not to say people didn’t stink before the campaign, but they used “B.O.” as a cryptic phrase that people whispered behind clueless people’s backs. “Do you have B.O.? Your friends won’t tell you!”)
Still, you can only sell so much bleach by saying “Are your whites a tiny bit yellowish?” “Have you got a grotty buildup of biological spooje on your clothes? Did you know that dust mites eat that shit up like gravy? Your clothes get stinky faster unless you get rid of it, too!” is going to work a lot better – and it’s true, if not terribly troubling to well-adjusted people.
“Body soil” is a perfectly cromulent term:
http://rad.usuhs.mil/medpix/medpix.html?mode=single&recnum=6762&table=card