I was going to tweet this rant earlier, but it would probably take about thirty tweets, so thought it best to just blog.

We try to be environmentally friendly in this house as much as we can, and part of that includes washing products.  Having two boys who like to get dirty in the actual dirt outside, and love to eat, well, hands-on (or on-clothes, as the case may be), a husband who rides a bike to and from work (sweaty!!), I need a washing powder that gets the clothes clean.  Our usual washing powder is Omo-matic, and it does a spectacular job. It gets the whites white, keeps the brights bright and gets rid of all obvious visible dirt.

So, ok, I get it that there are probably nasty chemicals that do all those amazing things for our washing, so I branched out into the eco-market and bought some Eco Store washing powder, some Earth Choice washing powder and a bottle of Earth Choice liquid.  They are all vegetable based, ok for grey water and relatively inexpensive - brilliant, right?

Nope!

I’m willing to have duller than white whites and hang white washing in the sun to be bleached naturally, no worries.  I’ll even turn my brights inside out to avoid fading, easy done.  Tomato, texta, and other heavy stains might need some pre-treatment - and I’m down with that.  However, when obvious, run of the mill, dusty brown dirt is still showing on clothes and towels, that is jut not good enough.

Saying this, I do still have half a box and half a bottle of all detergents left and it wouldn’t be very environmentally friendly to just throw them out in frustration, so I’ll keep using them all until they’re gone.  Grit my teeth and suck it up as I hang still dirty washing on the line.

In the meanwhile, what can anyone recommend?  If it comes down to it, I might stick with the eco powders for nappy washing to keep detergent residue at bay, and use the nasty powders for the clothes and towels.