As you might know, lately I’ve been trying to get our house as eco-friendly as possible. I don’t mind doing the laundry but the amount of water used and chemicals flushing down the drains afterwards made me think.
That’s why I decided to do some research – how to make laundry as eco-friendly as possible? The Internet gave me a solution: the EcoEgg. When I used to work at Holland&Barrett we sold refills for this Laundry Egg and they always smelled amazingly fresh. After reading a lot of reviews (I spent a whole evening reading review after review!), I decided I wanted to try this for myself. There are a lot of positive reviews, but to be honest there are quite some negative ones out there as well. Some people say the EcoEgg doesn’t get rid of spots and dirt, or that it hardly leaves the fragrance it promises. Others say it’s been working amazing, even getting rid of fruit juice, mud and grass stains. So what did I think?
My First Thoughts on the EcoEgg
I was super excited for the EcoEgg to arrive – I ordered it a week ago and it took some time before arriving. When it was finally here yesterday, I couldn’t wait to do the laundry (yes – for real!). I opened the package to find… Plastic.
Okay, that’s a bummer. All the pellets are wrapped in plastic. Why didn’t I see this coming? Nowadays everything is covered in plastic, but somehow I thought the EcoEgg would be different. The plastic has code #5, which is PP – Polypropylene. “Can be recycled into fibers”. I’m glad it’s recyclable, but I hope EcoEgg will look into finding a more eco-friendly way of packing the pellets. The pellets do smell nice I must say, I chose the “Fresh Linen” version.
The EcoEgg website recommends “detoxing” your washing machine first, but as I go to a launderette and every wash costs me £1.50 I didn’t really feel like detoxing. If we ever have a washing machine of our own… Then yes.
Dark Garments Test
Our laundry has been piling up over the last week because I so desperately wanted to try out the EcoEgg. Somehow Ron and I wear a lot of black clothes so I started with doing the dark garments at 30 degrees. After it was finished it did smell fresh, but when I was hanging out the laundry I noticed the clothes felt a bit greasy, like wool does sometimes.
When dry, the clothes felt soft (not greasy at all) and they had a very light “fresh linen” fragrance, in a good way!
White Garments Test
Next up was washing whites. Interestingly enough the clothes didn’t feel greasy at all after washing like the dark garments did. I have no idea if the greasy touch had something to do with the EcoEgg then, or maybe it was some leftover washing detergent from the last person who’d used the machine? The downside of not having your own washing mashine…
As with the dark garments, the clothes feel very soft when dry and have a light fragrance. All stains were gone, so this EcoEgg is a keeper!
My final verdict
In general I am very pleased with the EcoEgg. It seems to do what it should do, all our clothes are clean and soft to the touch, and the fragrance is not too present but it is nice.
The only thing that kinda puts me off is the plastic bags. Perhaps this is the most environmentally friendly way of packing the pellets for now, but I do wonder if EcoEgg could be using paper bags or small cardboard boxes instead.
Apart from the plastic bags I really like the EcoEgg Laundry Egg, and I am already thinking of ordering the Dryer Egg as well!
Have you ever tried the EcoEgg laundry egg? What did you think? What else can we do to make doing laundry more eco-friendly?
Kitchenoflion 