Dishwashing Liquid- Who's Got the Best Label?

National Geographic's Green Guide had a good article on dish soap this month. They ranked them according to how completely the company discloses ingredients, so that the consumer might discern how many are plant-based, how many are harmful additives, etc. At the top of their "honesty" list was Seventh Generation's Dish Liquid, which got three "G's". At 2 (for using generic terms like 'preservative' or 'surfactant', although these were certified low- eco impact by an independent agency) were Clorox Green Works (Natural Dishwashing Liquid), Ecover (Dishwashing Liquid), and Planet (Ultra Dishwashing Liquid Gel).

Receiving 1 'G' for generic ingredient names and a lack of independent testing were Biokleen dish liquid, Earth Friendly Products (Dishmate), Method (Ultra Concentrated), and Mrs Meyers (Clean Day Dish Soap). D'oh!

The label vaguery doesn't necessarily mean that the companies in question have something to hide, but I'd encourage them to spell things out as much as possible. Trade secrets are important, sure, but so is knowing what we're buying.

Incidently, SG has coupons on its website, and you can stock up in bulk on Amazon.com

Earth Friendly Products Natural Spa Dish Soap (and Junk Mail)

Ugh, the holiday catalog influx has begun! I have been getting 3-4 new catalogs each day, many from companies I've never shopped with. Victoria's Secret is the worst in terms of frequency, but Pottery Barn's is the thickest. Treehuger has a great post on removing yourself from junk mailing lists, but I also sat down and wrote to each company individually. (I was procrastinating other work.)

I just finished a bottle of Earth Friendly Products' Black Currant dish soap. I have never before used a dish soap that smelled this strongly. Every time I used it a wonderful tart berry scented wafted from the sink. I suppose the strong aroma could bother some people, but I loved it. Nice change from most shyly scented products.

Of course, scent is nothing without performance, and the soap worked very well. It didn't make my hands feel as dry as most soaps, but it cut through grease effectively. In the interest of full disclosure, I throw anything that can possibly fit into my dishwasher, so I may not have put this to as tough a challenge as it deserves. It did help me make work of some serious baked pasta dish pans, and it made me hate doing the dishes slightly less... it's definitely still one of my least favorite chores.

Black Currant is one of several scents. Click through to check them out. I want to try rosemary, lemongrass, and cucumber mint the most. Maybe they'll read this and send me a Christmas present ;)

I am currently using EFP's almond scented dish soap from their general product line. Review forthcoming.

Caldrea's Holiday Scents part II

I got my Caldrea holiday sample kit today! (The one I mentioned in this post.
The envelope said "let the season begin", which kinda made me snark because, y'know, it's September. Thankfully we have Halloween as a buffer between us and the Christmas madness.



Inside were three little soap samples, whose names and descriptions sound amazing (if not a bit pretentious), and whose smell I'd love to report to you. Alas, I am allergic to everything today and cannot smell a thing without a fit of sneezing. Reviews of the scents soon to come, then!

So we have:

Seville Orange Amber
Italian Cypress Pear
and
Cognac Vanilla Limon

Now, Caldrea seems to target a fairly bourgeois, earth conscious but high income consumer. They also have some of the best scented products on the market, but I _still_ can't speak to their effectiveness because I haven't tried them. What a reporter I am, eh? Seriously though, it may seem like I have a lot of cleaning products in my home, but I still haven't tried Caldrea! *hangs head*

Ok, ok... so, my urge to have a bit of fun at the expense of the scent names aside, the orange/amber one sounds goooood: "succulent orange mixed with spicy notes of clove, cardamom, and vanilla". Yum.... well, they do seem to sell it as a candle and hand lotion too, so perhaps if I love it, I won't be limited to standing around waiting for my hands to get dirty. The pear has cypress and cedarwood in it, and the vanilla one contains butterscotch, cognac, and lime. I swear, these sounds more like perfumes than cleaning products.

I really need to get my sense of smell back here.

In other news, the toilet concoction failed to remove the stains from inside my toilet bowl, even when left to soak overnight. Stronger measures must be taken! I'll be back. (Did it work for anyone?) Maybe I'll try the pine essential oil over the lavender.

EFP's Natural Spa Dish Soap

Earth Friendly Products has a line of "Personal Care Products." These are deluxe essential-oil scented hand and dish soaps, hand lotion, and linen "water" (aka product you spray on fabrics before ironing them.) I recently scooped up the dish soap in "Black Currant". I've used a lot of scented dish soaps recently, but this is the one that smells the strongest and is the most pleasant. I haven't gotten to scrub any really tough items (no over-microwaved tamales this week), but I did notice that my hands were less dry after using this.

I kind of like their caddy, actually. You know how water collects around your soap dispensers by the sink and you get dirt under there and bottle-marks? Er... I use "you" generously here. I could perhaps be assuming too much. Ahem. Anyway, if I could take for granted that most hand and soap bottles would fit nicely next to each other in that thing, I'd get it. I kinda wonder if Earth Friendly Products' standard dish soap bottles will fit.

I like the essential oil descriptions featured on the left column of the site. I'm a big enough aromatherapy nerd that I knew all of these (heck, I have half of the EO bottles mentioned in my house), but it's fun to think about lemongrass dish soap helping to revive me on a daily basis.

(They sure need to redesign their website however. Were I in the design business any longer I'd offer. It doesn't do them justice.)

Anyone tried the hand lotion? I'm using Desert Essence's Spicy Orange hand lotion right now, but as it smells nothing like oranges (or spice, for that matter), it won't be a repeat buy. (On a total tangent, their pistachio foot cream is lovely, however.)