Review: Laundry Tarts All-Natural Laundry Detergent*
Made here in Ontario, Laundry Tarts All-Natural Laundry Detergent is cloth diaper-friendly, free of the usual nasties, keeps your whites gleaming and comes in a delicious variety of scents. I was sent a package of Oatmeal Almond detergent, courtesy of The Laundry Tarts, and right away was pulled in by the yummy scent -- a subtle fragrance reminding me of almond cookies. I was also pulled in by the simple, eco-friendly packaging (a brown bag, folks!) and the tongue-in-cheek humour on the labeling. The ingredients list is clear and easy to read. I recognize all the items and use about half of them in my cooking! The list on the Oatmeal Almond is 7 ingredients -- a few more than my usual detergent, but a much shorter list than the usual grocery store detergent. This is important to me, and is something I recommend to people buying detergent to use with cloth diapers: look for a short list, and understand whatthe ingredients are -- if you can't pronounce it, don't use it!
I love the ethics behind this brand. These two ladies really get it -- from their background in natural health and healing, to their "100 mile" rule in the creation of their detergent! They are great communicators, available on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and a click away by email, and are very enthusiastic about their product.
To be honest, I'm enthusiastic about it, too! It works great on my diapers -- getting them whiter and doing better stain management that my other detergents -- and it also conquers the dirty "boy" laundry my older boys produce on a daily basis. I find I need to use two full tablespoons with my diapers in my front-loading washing machine, and I use the same with my regular laundry (as I am using less water and fewer rinses for clothes than with diapers). For set-in stains, add a little water to some detergent to make a paste and apply it to the stained area -- I found this worked better for stain removal than my usual store brand stain stick, and on par with the BunchaFarmers (by which I swear!).
I even tried the stain paste method on my old enameled farm sink in the kitchen, but I neglected to use a base white for comparison so the difference didn't show up well on camera. It didn't remove all of the stain (sandblasting might ;) ), but it knocked out a lot of it -- pretty cool for something meant for washing clothes, IMO!
The scent seems like a cloth diaper no-no, but I prefer it -- with a front-loading HE machine, it is very easy to not run enough rinses to get out all the detergent. The light scent in this detergent is my early-warning system, letting me know that it hasn't all been rinsed free -- if I open the washer and smell cookies, I need to run another rinse! When there is no longer a scent, the diapers are clean and free of lingering detergent residue.
My only gripes about the detergent (small ones, I promise!) are:
- I need to do an extra step for best results with my HE front-loading machine. The detergent dissolves best if soaked in a small amount of warm waterbefore being added to the machine.
- I experienced build-up issues on one of my cloth diapers. The new bumGenius 4.0 uses a different fleece inside and, for whatever reason, the detergent doesn't seem to rinse completely free from the gathers around the leg elastic. I use more than 15 different types of diapers, however, and this was the *only* one I had trouble with. For what it's worth, I didn't like the new bumGenius 4.0 fleece before having this problem, so I'm not that bothered by it. ;) I'd rather ditch that diaper and keep the detergent, if need be!
You can purchase The Laundry Tarts All Natural Laundry Detergent on their website or, in Ottawa, at The Extraordinary Baby Shoppe.
I give this product two thumbs up! :)
*I received free product in exchange for this product review.