Weekend Extra: Earth Friendly Products

Recently I questioned the fine folks on the Cooking Light Bulletin Boards about their dish soap. For the life of me, I have pots, pans, and spatulas that retain soap flavor, and it's been driving me nuts. There's nothing worse than a perfectly cooked crepe with an aftertaste reminiscent of Palmolive. So I asked for opinions on dish soaps and it led me to an unexpected find.

With all the things our family has been doing to try and be more environmentally conscious, you'd think it would have occurred to me to try some natural cleaning products. But it didn't. In fact, I've always been under the impression that these types of products don't clean very well. I was proven wrong.

Last week I scoured the twelve feet of dish soap shelving at my grocery store looking for any product that was natural. They only had one brand- and two variants of the brand from Earth Friendly Products. After looking at the bottle, choosing a scent (I chose pear and left the almond behind), and studying the price difference, I decided that an extra sixty cents would be worth a try. Can you actually believe that I was looking forward to going home to do dishes?

The soap had a plus straight out of the bag. It had a seal on the bottle. Thank goodness someone got smart and realized that shoppers really don't like it when the dish soap leaks all over their produce. I popped the seal and was greeted with the most natural pear scent I've ever had that wasn't from an actual pear. I read the bottle, which said that one teaspoon of soap was plenty for three gallons of water. Really? So I squirted a touch in my sink, filled it with hot water and started to wash. The scent was so pleasing- and not overwhelming in the least. The dishes washed just as easily as if I'd used Dawn, but the best part was rinsing them. They rinsed right off, and I swear the dishes had a shiny clean-ness to them that I hadn't seen in a very long time.

I've been using this dish soap for well over a week now, and since I brought it home I stopped using rubber gloves. You'd never notice. My hands are not dried out or beat up as they are with standard dish soaps. And I do wash dishes several times a day, every day. It's a true pleasure to do the dishes and I love that this soap is not harmful to the environment in any way. It's made from coconut oils, water, salt, and pear oil. That's it. And I haven't noticed a soapy flavor in anything in the last week either.

Another benefit is that one bottle will last a very long time. With just one teaspoon of soap per sink full of hot water, I will make up that extra sixty cents in no time. You can check out Earth Friendly Products at their website or hopefully on some store shelves near you. If not, no worries, they do ship their products. Up next I plan to try their laundry detergents and their bathroom cleansers. I will be certain and report back when I do.