salts of the fatty acid amides of methyltaurine alkanemonosulfonates such as those from the reaction of u03b1 olefins c 8 c 20 with sodium bisulfite and those from the reaction of paraffins with so 2 and cl 2 with subsequent basic hydrolysis to give a mixture of different sulfonates sodium and ammonium dialkylsulfosuccinates having c 7 c 12 alkyl radicals and olefinsulfonates formed in the reaction of olefins especially c 10 c 20 u03b1 olefins with so 3 and subsequent hydrolysis of the reaction products the preferred anionic detergents are sodium alkylbenzenesulfonates having c 15 c 18 alkyl radicals and sodium alkyl ether sulfates having c 16 c 18 alkyl radicals examples of suitable nonionic surface active compounds which are preferably used together with anionic surface active compounds are in particular the reaction products of alkylene oxides usually ethylene oxide with alkylphenols c 5 c 22 alkyl radicals the reaction products generally containing from 5 to 25 ethylene oxide eo units in the molecule the reaction products of aliphatic c 8 to c 18 primary or secondary linear or branched alcohols with ethylene oxide generally with from 6 to 30 eo and the adducts of ethylene oxide with reaction products of propylene oxide and ethylenediamine other nonionic surface active compounds are alkyl polyglycosides long chain tertiary amine oxides long chain tertiary phosphine oxides and dialkyl sulfoxides amphoteric or zwitterionic surface active compounds can likewise be used in the compositions according to the invention although in most cases this is not desirable owing to their high cost if amphoteric or zwitterionic compounds are used they are generally used in small amounts.