Tag Archives: Laundry

Last updated by at .

Go Green for Earth Day with Method Detergent

My family and I have been huge fans of Method home products for a long time. We particularly enjoy the bottles of glistening hand and dish wash, in pretty colors and scents, that grace our kitchen sink. We appreciate that Method has also started to make bottles  from recycled ocean plastic.

So, of course I was excited to learn that Method is now making laundry detergent and products in its signature and other scents and that I was being asked to give them a try.

I chose a 50-load bottle of Fresh Air scented detergent. I greatly appreciated the pump bottle and its ease of transport and use. I learned that Method laundry detergent is plant-based, yet ultra-concentrated. That means less production, product and packaging waste. (Because Method detergent is 8x concentrated, it uses drastically less water and 36% less plastic, and requires 33% less energy and oil to produce than most widely-available detergents. Its bottle, too, is made from 50% recycled plastic, which made our family very happy.

My local market offered Method detergent in two scents, “Free and Clear” and “Fresh Air”. While I normally lean toward unscented or lightly scented products for home use, I did want to try one of Method’s signature scents (and they’d never steered me wrong with their dish soap.) I opted for a bottle of “Fresh Air” detergent and immediately brought it home and put it to use. I loved the scent. I found it to be very clean without being cloying. It offered a subtle, lovely, “clean laundry” smell that I somewhat associate with detergents I’ve liked in the past, though Method’s is far subtler. For someone like me who doesn’t like laundry detergents in obvious scents, this is great. I’m eager to try their other scents, too, lavender cedar, sweet pea and spring daisy.

I washed multiple loads of laundry. white and colored,  for a trip, and everything turned out great. I decided to try Method as a stain remover on a stubborn stain that had occurred earlier in the week when the red yarn on a favorite sweater ran into the white during hand-washing. Even though this was a stain that had set in over time, Method worked phenomenally, after other stain removers had not. Method allowed enough improvement (with a pleasant smell!) so that I can actually wear the sweater.

This was a bleed stain that had set in! Method is tough on stains, but easy on the planet. Now you can enter to win a year’s supply of Method laundry detergent and products. I did!

Happy Earth Day!

Other Slow Family posts you might like include:

What Our Kids Can Teach Us About Recycling
Live a Slower, Less Expensive and More Meaningful Life: A Teen’s 10 Tips for Recycling and Reuse
Back to School: Green Sandwich and Snack Bags
Earth Day and Every Day: 11 Ways to Make Gardening Extra Fun for Kids

This post is sponsored by Method. The views expressed are my own.

Slow News: Discover the Act of Line-Drying Laundry

A couple of weekends ago, my family and I were wandering around the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, when I caught sight of this laundry blowing on a line in the breeze. I found it quite pleasant and mesmerizing to watch, and it got me thinking about the act of line-drying laundry.

Lots of people are re-discovering line drying as a way to use less electricity for the task of drying their clothes. For others, it takes them back to a time when outdoor clotheslines were more common and summers included the sweet, fresh smell of laundry drying  (and, in my husband’s case, the sound of his mom’s wooden clothespins plunking into her metal bucket, as she released her laundry from its line.)

This site offers lots of tips to get the most out of line drying. I like to use a drying rack, to reduce both my electric use and the wear-and-tear on my clothes. Another site, Urban Clothesline, features lots of great drying racks, lines, and other solutions that can be used in a variety of settings, from backyards to apartment bathrooms.

The Project Laundry List site has a wealth of information about the economic and energy savings associated with line drying. It also covers programs, trends and issues, such as the role of homeowner’s association rules concerning practices like outdoor laundry drying. There’s even a laundry history. As much as I like line drying, I am thankful for the invention of the washing machine nearly every time I use mine.

Lastly, if you seek lovely, uniquely scented soap for your wash, Maylee’s Garden offers natural vegan and eco-friendly soap in a variety of great fragrances like Lavender and Cedar, Bergamot and Lemon, and many more.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...