For those who live around a Meijer

I got a note from Ecostore USA that the founder of the outfit is going to be hanging out at some Meijer stores to talk about their products and hand out free t-shirts to the first twenty-five folks with inquiring minds, and they say there will be ‘entertainment for the kids.’

Cool beans…specifically, he will be here:

4/13 Chicago - McHenry (5-7 PM)
4/18 Detroit - Wixom (5-7 PM)
4/20 Fort Wayne - Illinois Road (5-7 PM)
4/21 Indianapolis - Carmel (5-7 PM)
4/22 Cincinnati - Harrison Road (4-6 PM)
4/23 Grand Rapids - Cascade (2-4 PM)
California – eh, sorry, not on the list (DARN!)

If you haven’t tried their stuff yet…I can personally vouch for their Laundry Liquid and their Pure Oxygen Whitener (think OxyClean).

It might come as a complete surprise that a place called “Ecostore” is all about the ecological responsibility thing. I know! You’d think they come up with something that implied that for a name! But oh well, it is what it is. ANYWAY. Their slogan is “No Nasty Chemicals,” and their products are designed to be easy on your skin and the planet.

Which, of course, means that we all go, “Uhhhhhhhh-huh. Great. Yeah. But, can it get grass stains out of The Boy’s jeans?”

I have to say it has worked just fine on the grass stains and all but the really nasty stains that honestly – I suspect bleach couldn’t budge. Not that I’d use bleach on Captain Adventure’s jeans anyway because duh, that would solve the problem exactly like cutting off your nose will solve a pimple problem.

The second thing most of us will say is, “Fine, but eleven bucks [plus shipping] for slightly less than 34 ounces of detergent? Please. I only pay eight bucks (seven with coupon!) for my super-concentrated All Small & Mighty!”

Hokay…but honestly, this stuff has also passed the economy test. That one $11 bottle is at this point slightly over half used, and has done not only four weeks of my usual ten-to-fourteen super-sized loads of laundry, but has also handled a fair number of off-label trials involving skeins of rotgut yarn and mesh bags. The laundry liquid is really concentrated. I’ve been using roughly two-to-three tablespoons for one of my Super Extra Large Ginormous Front Loader of Doom loads of clothes. A bit less than the label recommends, but then all hard-core cheapskates know about that.

If you don’t know about that – however much detergent you’re using in your dishwasher or washing machine? It’s probably way more than you actually need to use. Invest in a little experimentation to find the point of Just Right - start at a fourth the recommended amount and, if it doesn’t seem to be getting the job done, edge it up until you find the sweet spot. For me, it seems to be about half whatever the label recommends.

But I digress. What I really like about this stuff is the scent: It’s a clear, sharp eucalyptus, brought to you courtesy of pure eucalyptus oil. I haven’t found that the scent lasts all the way through to the dryer (drat!) or my closet (double drat!) (that place could use some freshening up, believe me), but I really like the way that sharp oh my gosh, it just smells so CLEAN in here scent fills the house on laundry day.

The oxygen whitener is just like OxyClean, only without the hype (thank you, Ecostore, for not hiring good old Billy to hawk this stuff for you). I mostly use it with the lights and whites, and to soak the “ruined” clothes before I wash them. It works well on things like food and grass stains, and doesn’t harm the colors as long as you “use as directed.” (Huh? What? Why are you all looking at me like that? I always follow the label instructions…)

Speaking of always following the label instructions, I didn’t do that and also used that regular laundry liquid on my hand-wash clothes and skeins of rotgut yarn. That stuff that I was complaining about a while back, that is way on the rough-n-scratchy side? I’d been washing it in Woolite and vinegar, and then I thought I’d give this stuff a try with it. I’d put about twelve skeins into mesh bags, add about two tablespoons of the laundry liquid and a quarter cup of vinegar in the softener dispenser.

Worked a treat. It came out softer than with the Woolite and vinegar, and for bonus points it smelled a lot less “sheepy.” (This stuff kind of reeks, when it’s right off the cone. I say this as a person who can call picking [ahem] vegetable matter out of a raw fleece “an afternoon pleasantly spent” – this stuff, it hath A Certain Pungency.) (If it didn’t take dye so well, I’d deep six it. But man, does it ever color up purty. Sigh.)

They do have a wool wash, but, well, I didn’t get that. And furthermore, it doesn’t have the eucalyptus oil in it, and it is my firm, emotionally biased, and completely unscientific belief that it is the eucalyptus oil that is helping with the de-stinking and softening process here.

So there you are. A news brief about free t-shirts and kid entertainment, turned into a two page soliloquy about laundry detergent. C’mon! Where else are you going to find that level of entertainment, folks?!

And oh my gawd, would you believe I knew how to spell ‘soliloquy’? I am amazed. I had to look up eucalyptus twice, but soliloquy just flowed right on out.

My brain, she is a strange place.

And now, I must return to the laundry…which multiplies in the dark corners of the Den, growing like the national debt and with just as much likelihood of ever being actually dealt with…