I have been using various eco-friendly products over the few months and finally feel like I have some things to reccommend.
Every dishwashing liquid we've tried has been fine. The cheapest is I think the Down to Earth green stuff with the dolphin on it, but the bubbles don't last a terribly long time. The other one we've tried is a BEE brand one called "I feel good on your hands" (all their products have conversational names, as you will see...) and it's a bit more expensive but rather good.
I've tried a couple of different dishwasher powders and found them to be lacking. One was a Plunket approved one, which I can't recall the brand of and the other was an Eco-store bottle. In the process of using them both I found the glasses would come out of the machine smeary and the plates would sometimes have little bits stuck on them, so I've gone back to the old nasty chemicals instead. The eco-store rinse-aid seems good though, and just as cheap as any rinse-aid. The enviro-friendly dishwashing powders are quite expensive, though, and you get less.
Spray on surface cleansers turned out fun to test, since I bought a BEE brand one called "I love your every surface" and Lee found the essential oil smells got right up his nose and irritated it. He simply can't use it without sneezing and complaining so we bought an Eco-Store one, based on citrus and he likes that one fine. The spray cleansers work the same as regular spray and wipes and are about the same price.
For the laundry I like to use a liquid, because it's less hassle, so I tried out the BEE line first. The enviromentally friendly laundry liquids are a bit more pricey than the other brands, but I kind of think a couple of dollars to get their businesses booming now and the price will come down as more and more people use them.
So, the BEE cleaner "I'll take care of your dirty work" was fine. It works perfectly but didn't have any kind of wow factor. I didn't realise I needed some sort of wow factor from my laundry until I switched to the eco-store branded laundry liquid. This is based on eucalyptus oil, but it gives the clothes this lovely clean fresh air lemony smell. I pulled the laundry out of the machine that first time and knew I could never go back. The clothes smell awesome and the bottle has a pretty picture of a petticoat on the front. What more could you want?
There are two brands of recycled toilet paper available at my supermarket, and I approve of both of them. And yes, I recall the jokes from primary school about recycling toilet paper, but these packets both assure me they are recycled from clean office paper, so it's fine.
One brand is SAFE and produces it all within Australia and the other is Naturale and has a tree frog on the cover. Generally I buy SAFE because you can get 6 rolls, but the tree frog only seems to do four at a time. Again, these are exactly the same price as all the other nicer toilet papers (it's more expensive than the cheap stuff, but not Sorbent which we used to get.) It's soft, it's 2 ply, it's clean and even embossed. SAFE also do a range of unbleached toilet paper but it was a weird brown colour and Lee got upset.
I have yet to find recycled paper towels or tissues, but I did find a range of organic sanitary products called Natracare and they are just fine. Oh, and mustn't forget the Potato plates I saw, a nice colourful alternative to paper plates and fully compostable and biodegradable! They're a bit expensive but I suspect just because they aren't yet mass produced.
Eco-store online, or at the New World in Thorndon. Oh and they have a free sample of laundry powder promotion on the main site there.
BEE (Beauty Engineered for Ever) here or at the supermarket.
SAFE are here.
And the Potatopak brand, and after having a brief look it seems a lot cheaper to buy their stuff from the website. Huh. A LOT cheaper.
Also, for those interested in the new Susanna Clarke book The Ladies of Grace Adieu, which is $55 in bookstores in town, fishpond have it for much less, more like $37. See for yourself here
Posted by jenni at January 14, 2007 06:02 PM