Game Changing Natural Laundry Detergent Sheets
Editor’s note (12.2022): After I published this post, new analysis showed that plastic particles from PVA, a component of Earth Breeze laundry sheets, persist in the environment and do not break down in wastewater treatment facilities. Competitor Blueland has launched a formal petition to the EPA to prohibit the use of PVA in consumer products. The PVA in these sheets is different than the pods that were studied, and I have requested more information from the company to make sure that they don’t cause microplastics. I won’t use them until more information is available, which I will report back here. Loving these new zero waste natural laundry detergent sheets I…
Mommy Greenest Approved: Meliora K Natural Laundry
There’s a great scene in the new biopic of Stephen Hawking in which he woos his soon-to-be wife with an analysis of why the men’s white shirts luminesce in the ultraviolet lights of a cocktail party. “Optical whiteners,” he says—and she swoons. I didn’t know that that meant, so I did a little research. Optical whiteners are synthetic chemicals that make laundry look brighter; they absorb ultraviolet light and re-emit it as blue light. (It’s basically the same reason why white-haired ladies use blue shampoo.) So since optical brighteners have nothing to do with getting your laundry actually clean, I wondered if there was a downside to these chemicals—and if you…
Mommy Greenest Approved: dapple Natural Laundry Products
It’s one thing to trust a mom to give you advice about natural laundry products. It’s another thing to trust a mother of four. Any four-time mom who wants to share her secret to getting stains off of kids’ clothes is some kind of guru to me. That’s why when I started talking with the dapple team about natural laundry products, I listened closely. Because when I mean team, I’m talking about Dana Rubinstein and Tamar Rosenthal, who founded the toxic chemical free dapple cleaning products line in 2008 and are each a mother of four.
Natural & Homemade Laundry 101
Think your laundry can’t make a difference? Think again: According to Seventh Generation,which pretty much established the natural cleaning products industry in the United States, if every American household replaced one bottle of petroleum-based detergent with a plant-based one, we could save 149,000 barrels of oil—enough to heat and cool 8,500 homes for a year. But do plant-based natural and homemade laundry products really work? Absolutely! In fact, once you wean yourself off synthetic soaps—laden with those petrochemically-derived scents that you used to associate with clean laundry—your clothes will be cleaner than ever. Plus, your family might notice less allergies and skin irritations, such as contact dermatitis and eczema. Here are…
Mommy Greenest Approved: LooHoos Dryer Balls
When I first heard about LooHoos Wool Dryer Balls, I was skeptical. How could throwing a ball of wool into your dryer reduce drying time and static, and add softness to your clothes? Then I tried them, adding three dryer balls to a full load. And lo and behold, my clothes were soft and static free in about 10 minutes less time than usual! I hadn’t used dryer sheets since I learned about the artificial fragrance and toxic chemicals that go into most of them. And without dryer sheets clothes do tend to get a bit rough, so my family was thankful for an extra dose of softness. But for me,…
