Laundry pre-treatment or pre-spotting compositions used to improve aqueous laundry processing

The present invention refers to a laundry pre-treatment composition capable of treating hydrophobic and organic particulate soils in the laundry item, the composition comprising: (a) an effective soil treating amount of a hydrophilic ethoxylate surfactant composition having an HLB of about 10 to 20, the surfactant comprising the formula R1-(OC2H4)o-(OC3H6)n-OH with an HLB of at least 10, wherein m and n are independently a number of about 0 to about 20, n+o > 4 and R1 is an aromatic or aliphatic, hydrophilic group of 6 to 24 carbon atoms; and (b) an effective soil treating amount of a hydrophobic alcohol ethoxylate composition of the formula: R2-(OC2H4)p-OH with an HLB of less than about 9 wherein R2 is a straight or branched chain fatty alkyl group containing from about 6 to 24 carbon atoms and p is a number of less than about 2; wherein the amounts of ethoxylate surfactant composition and the alcohol ethoxylate composition are selected to obtain an overall HLB value of about 7 - 12 in the composition.