Eco Egg

Hiya Guys!

I hope you are all doing well and are ready for Autumn, I know I certainly am! There is nothing better than cosy nights in wrapped up in a big warm blanket with a hot chocolate, whilst it's dark and cold outside.

As I am sure you've heard me talk about many times, this year I have really started to focus on living a more eco friendly lifestyle - whether this is by massively reducing my meat and dairy consumption to cutting out single use plastic in our household, both myself and my boyfriend Alex have been making a really big effort towards this.

I wanted to do a post today about Ecoegg who are a company who focus on eco friendly laundry products, I bought an Ecoegg Laundry Egg back in July and I have not looked back since! I will never use conventional laundry products again, I wish I'd have found Ecoegg sooner. I will also be doing a give-away for an Ecoegg product at the end of this post! 

Ecoegg Laundry Egg

The first Ecoegg product I tried was their Laundry Egg, which I bought in July and I have to say that this product is the most practical eco friendly product I have bought with regards to everyday usage and how much waste we have reduced. It is a reusable product that you use in place of laundry detergent and fabric conditioner - simply pop it into the washing machine drum along with your washing and it's that simple! 

The Laundry Egg includes the egg itself as well as the pellets that go inside the egg, there is a instruction manual included which advises how many washes the pellets will do before having to replace them. They last around 70 washes, then you simply purchase the refill pellets and top up your egg. 

Ecoegg have found that if you switch from liquid detergent and fabric conditioner to a Laundry Egg you will save up to 40 bottles of plastic each year (based on 7 washes a week). If everyone made the switch to a Laundry Egg can you imagine how much we could reduce plastic waste! 

Another benefit is the amount of money you will end up saving in the long run. The only laundry product I have bought since using the Laundry Egg is one bottle of Ecover Fabric Softener which I use for my towels as I find that using the egg alone leaves the towels a little harder than I like them. Other than that I just use the egg on it's own for all my washing. Many people have asked me if it cleans clothes as well as the conventional products do and seem worried that it wouldn't smell nice or may come out stained. In the 4 months I have been using the Laundry Egg I haven't had to re-wash any clothes due to smells or stains - it cleans my clothes as well as any other product I've used before and leaves clothes smelling lovely and fresh - I use the Fresh Linen scent. 

You can buy the Laundry Egg in two scents - Fresh Linen and Spring Blossom, they also have a Fragrance Free option. They include no harsh chemicals and as well as being kind to the environment they are kind to your skin, perfect for those who have to be careful with which laundry products they use due to having sensitive skin or a skin condition. 

You can purchase the products on their website or in most Waitrose stores.

Laundry Egg

Ecoegg Instant Stain Remover 

I can't recommend this product enough, Ecoegg kindly sent over their Instant Stain Remover for me to try out alongside my Laundry Egg and I absolutely love it! I rarely need stain remover as I find my Laundry Egg gets out most marks, however if I had a tougher stain I always used a 'soap bar' type stain remover that I would rub on before putting in the washing machine.

On the day my Instant Stain Remover arrived, it was like fate - as I managed to get paint all over my black t-shirt when trying to touch up the paintwork on the landing at our house. I was using one of those little tester rollers and when squeezing the paint to come out it fired out in all directions all over my face and t-shirt! How planned this sounds is so funny - but it was honestly a lifesaver. 

I did this once before and tried getting it out with the bar and washing it however it didn't come out and I was absolutely gutted. However as soon as it happened, I ran it under the tap and sprayed it with the Stain Remover then popped it straight into the washing machine with my Laundry Egg and it came out! I was honestly SO chuffed. 

Just like the Laundry Egg this product includes no harsh chemicals and has been dermatologically tested and is hypoallergenic.  

Instant Stain Remover

Ecoegg Dryer Eggs

The final Ecoegg product that I have tried is their Dryer Eggs, along with the Stain Remover I was kindly gifted this product to test out. In our house we have a washer/dryer and honestly hardly ever use the dryer unless we really need to. I'm not sure whether it's because it's a washer/dryer rather than just the dryer on it's own however when I've used the dryer option in the past, it seems to take forever to actually dry the clothes - it got to the point where we would have it on for an hour however the clothes still came out damp so we then dried them on the clothes horse.

So when I received these Dryer Eggs I was really looking forward to testing them out as Ecoegg claim that it reduces drying time by 28% which is a huge difference since dryers are one of the most expensive Household Appliances. I have used the product a few times now and I am really surprised at how much they really work! I now find that when I put the clothes in the dryer alongside the dryer eggs, the time it usually takes to get clothes fully dry is reduced quite a bit and I can now allow clothes to dry rather than taking them out damp and drying on the clothes horse. I always did this as I couldn't justify how long it used to take my clothes to dry.

These are such a good investment if you regularly use your dryer - something as simple as popping them in the machine with your clothes can reduce the drying time and in the long run save you money! Just like the Laundry Egg the Dryer Eggs come in two scents  as well as Fragrance Free - the fragrance sticks add a delicate scent to your laundry. 

Dryer Balls

GIVE AWAY

Ecoegg have very kindly given me a set of Spring Blossom Dryer Balls to give away to someone, I am holding this give away over on my Instagram, so if you click HERE it will take you to my page and you can go ahead and enter if you'd like to be in with a chance of winning these for yourself.

As always, thank you very much for reading. If you have any questions about Ecoegg, feel free to ask away and I will try and answer the best as I can. Let me know your thoughts on Ecoegg and if you use any other eco friendly laundry products I would love to know!

Amber xxx 

Empties and Eco Alternatives

Hiya Guys!

I recently put a poll on my Instagram as to whether anyone would be interested in seeing products that I have recently used up and hearing my thoughts about how I felt about these products as well if I could find a more eco friendly alternative. I received quite a lot of interest in this idea, especially from people wanting to see the eco friendly alternatives - so here we are!

Wipes 

Wipes are something I have always had in our house and I have always used for as long as I can remember, baby wipes especially as I just found that they were more sensitive and calming to my skin. 

I used wipes for so many different things and when I think of these reasons now, I know it was just super lazy. I would use these after my micellar water to ensure all my make up was removed, I would use them to clean product off my hands after doing my make up or just to wipe my face if I wanted to feel a bit more refreshed when wearing make up! However I am so aware of how awful wipes are for the environment therefore we are removing wipes from our household completely and once we have used up the last packet we will no longer be re-purchasing them.

Eco Alternative 

The eco alternative of wipes is very simple for me - if I need to get any product off my hands after doing my make up, I need to stop relying on the convenience of wipes and wash them with soap and water! 

As well as using them to wipe my face of remove make up, it's quite simple - use face cleansing products and water. Lush do many different naked skincare products, one being the 7-3 Cleansing Wipe which is essentially a packaging free wipe that is activated with water and can be used multiple times to remove make up! 

Shower Gel and Shower Cream 

For as long as I can remember both myself and Alex have religiously used Lush Shower Gel and Cream. Lush is an incredible company that I have been a fan of for many years and I will always choose their products when it comes to skincare, bathing and hair care. 

This is due to their ethos' and values, whether this is in relation to recycling, being cruelty free and so many more amazing causes that Lush support. Therefore this isn't something I will never use again. At one point we did have one too many Shower Gels and Creams as I became quite obsessive and collective with Lush however we are slowly working through these are reducing our collection.

There are a couple of scents by Lush that we absolutely love such as Calacas which isn't part of their permanent range and doesn't have a solid/naked version at the moment, so we have a couple of bottles of this stocked up as it's our favourite and will probably buy this again should it be re-released! However as these bottles can be fully recycled I am happy to continue to purchase this item.

Eco Alternative 

Although I will be keeping a couple of my Shower Gels such as Calacas as mentioned above, I will not be purchasing multiple bottles at once like I have done in the past. We will be moving on to using soap - Lush have such a great range of packaging free soap. In store you can choose how big of a chunk you'd like and they will cut it to size for you. 

This alternative is another one which is going back to basics, it seems super simple but if you think about the amount of plastic waste which is created from shower gel alone - it is absolutely insane! 

Bloo Foam Aroma 

In all honesty this product was the most useless thing I've ever bought, I have to admit that I got sucked into the cleaning hype like quite a lot of other people and bought everything and anything that Mrs Hinch recommended even though I didn't need it. I still enjoy watching Mrs Hinch's stories and keeping up with her on Instagram however I can't come to terms with the stock piling of products and chemicals - most of which are tested on animals. 

Eco Alternative

I have seen quite a few different recipes to make your own fizzing toilet blocks or powders which I will be trialing and testing soon. Anything I can make at home is a big win for me! As soon as I have made these and tested them out I will put the recipe and what I thought about it on my Instagram. 

Body Scrub

I have quite a few different Body Scrubs on the go at the moment including Lush, The Body Shop and Happy Place Cosmetics. These two Body Scrubs are from The Body Shop - one of which I received as part of a gift set for my birthday and another I bought in the Christmas sale. 

The Body Shop are another company that have really good morals and values and are completely cruelty free. They have also recently released their recycling programme, where they will take back all your empty pots and ensure that they are recycled correctly. Therefore this product isn't something I would never re-purchase again in the future - however I would ensure that it is from a company such as Lush or The Body Shop.

Eco Alternative 

When it comes to cosmetics you will notice that Lush is a company I mention a lot throughout this post and this is due to my personal experience with their products throughout the years - there may well be many more companies that sell naked products and if you know of any that you love, please let me know!

Packaging free Body Scrubs are something that I have been using for a while from Lush, my favourite being Scrubee. Scrubee is a packaging free Solid Body Butter from Lush and is filled with ground coconut shells and ground almonds therefore it doubles as a scrub and body butter in one and leaves you feeling super soft and moisturised after use! Another naked scrub I have recently purchased from Lush is Aurora Borealis which I am really looking forward to trying out!

Concentrated Disinfectant

As previously mentioned I was very quickly sucked into this whole 'cleaning' hype, as we moved into our first home in October 2018 and this was when I discovered Mrs Hinch. At this point I was introduced to Zoflora and it's many uses, now this is something I do continue to use however I no longer buy lots of different scents when I see them and just have a few bottles left. This is also the same case for Fabulosa.

I do really enjoy using these products to clean and they are cruelty free which is a massive factor for me. I use them diluted in a spray bottle as an all purpose cleaner to clean the kitchen surfaces and other non-wood surfaces throughout the house. I also use them to clean the bathroom - I fill the bath/sink up with hot water and add a splash of the concentrate disinfectant to clean the bath/sink all the surfaces around and the taps etc.

Eco Alternative

In comparison to the multiple different products I previously used to clean the kitchen and bathroom, I do believe that by only having one bottle of Zoflora which I use diluted is creating a lot less waste than before. 

The product is cruelty free and the bottle is easily recyclable therefore the only downside would be if you are looking to go plastic free. Going forward I would like to try make my own cleaners and disinfectants, therefore if you have any recipes, please do let me know! However at the moment I will continue to use up my concentrate disinfectants, by diluting them and using them for many different purposes.

Micellar Water 

I absolutely love using Micellar Water to remove my make up, it's so quick and easy and is really convenient to use. Realistically I will continue to buy this, although it does come in a plastic bottle, simply because I have yet to find a Micellar Water/Make Up Remover in glass packaging.

Eco Alternative

A way I've started to reduce how much I use is by using the 7-3 Wipes by Lush which I have previously mentioned to remove the majority of my make up as well as other products from their naked skincare range, then if I need to use the Micellar Water just to ensure my face is completely clear of make up and dirt - I will only use a small amount of my reusable cotton pads. I have cut the single use cotton pads out of my life completely therefore by using reusable cotton pads this reduces a lot of the waste that was produced from me removing my make up.

By only using the Micellar Water to ensure the make up is completely removed, rather than it being used to remove all my make up, the product will last a lot longer meaning I don't have to purchase as many bottles of this product.

I hope you guys enjoyed the read and if so please let me know and I will do another in the future! It's really good to collect your empties throughout the month and then have a look through and realistically think whether you would use it again and whether it's worth re-purchasing. Or if you can find a more eco friendly/plastic free alternative!

Amber xxx