In the Pacific Northwest we have two distinct seasons: summer and mud. As caretaker of a fluffy, energetic dog, I need a laundry detergent that can handle full loads of heavily mud-stained clothes and towels. Are Tru Earth’s platinum eco-strips up to the task?
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Do Platinum Eco-Strips Work?
To be honest, this was a pretty easy test to administer. Thanks to my two-year-old Aussie, Pippen, I have a constant supply of heavily soiled clothes and towels.
He gets muddy paws every time he goes outside, and we have to wipe his paws clean every time he comes in.
Now, multiply that by 10 trips outside per day, occasional hikes, and regular trips to the dog park over six months of rainy PNW weather…
Here’s a taste of what I’m dealing with:
So, to test out the platinum eco-strips ($21.95 through Tru Earth or on sale for $17.50 in the Emeraldology Shop), I simply threw one strip in with a week’s worth of dog towels, about seven full-sized beach towels.
Tru Earth recommends two strips for heavy loads, but I was hoping to get away with one strip because, well, I’m cheap.
Before and after:
Artwork from Pippen’s “Brown Period” Towels after washing with one platinum eco-strip
The results pretty much speak for themselves. The platinum eco-strip completely removed the mud from all the towels and they actually smell nice for once.
I’m all set for another week of wiping Pippen’s muddy paws, belly and face!
Not only does this product work, but it’s super easy to use. There’s no measuring, spilling or lugging ridiculously heavy liquid laundry detergent jugs around.
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Are platinum strips better than regular ones?
Tru Earth already offers Fresh Linen and Fragrance Free laundry strips for $19.95 — see my review here — so what makes platinum eco-strips different and worth two extra bucks?
According to a Tru Earth employee, “the ingredients are actually the same but are enhanced and highly concentrated (5x more).”
That’s actually good news, because in my first review I found the ingredients to be cruelty-free, largely plant-based, hypoallergenic, and free of parabens, phosphates, and chlorine bleach. If you are sensitive to fragrances, check out Fragrance Free Platinum Eco-Strips.
So instead of introducing some nasty new ingredient, Tru Earth just tweaked its formula for owners of fluffy white dogs. How thoughtful!
Related: Lumehra Natural Laundry Detergents: Do They Really Work?
Who else are these strips for?
Platinum eco-strips are perfect for my uses with Pippen’s towels and some of my heavily stained gardening and hiking clothes.
I also see them working great for athletes, outdoor enthusiasts, people with labor-intensive jobs, and anyone living in tight quarters like college students and apartment dwellers.
Use promo code SHIP4FREE for free shipping on your first pack of Tru Earth laundry strips!
What Makes Tru Earth Eco-Friendly?
Let’s start with the painfully obvious. Just look at the ingredients of liquid detergent — even one with plant-based and cruelty-free ingredients like ECOS. The first and most prevalent ingredient is water.
You know, the same stuff that pours into your washing machine when you turn it on.
That’s like buying firewood that’s already on fire.
Not only is watered-down detergent complete nonsense, shipping it takes a toll on the environment. One eco-strip is a whopping 94% lighter than a load’s worth of liquid detergent, which means it’s much lighter to ship.
Plus, it comes ships directly to your home, saving you an eye-watering trip down the detergent aisle.
By Tru Earth’s estimate, if everyone switched to eco-strips we would reduce trucking emissions “equivalent to taking 27 million cars off the road for a day, or planting nine million trees.”
It also turns out that fresh water is the world’s most precious resource and other living things — specifically, all of them — need it to survive. So maybe pointlessly packing it away in plastic laundry detergent bottles isn’t the best thing for life on our planet.
Please, no more plastic
Just as fresh water is the planet’s most precious resource, plastic is the world’s least precious one. Basically, once plastic (a product of the fossil fuel industry) is created, it’s doomed to wreak havoc on the biosphere for hundreds of years.
For example, plastic is in our rain and drinking water. In fact, humans unwillingly consume about a credit card’s worth of plastic every week.
And as for plastic recycling, well, that’s pretty much been a myth all along. Reporting by NPR and PBS Frontline found that Big Oil “sold the public on an idea it knew wouldn’t work — that the majority of plastic could be, and would be, recycled — all while making billions of dollars selling the world new plastic.”
In fact, documents from 1974 show the industry itself believed plastic recycling wasn’t a viable solution. And they were right. Less than 10% of the plastic ever created has been recycled.
Compostable cardboard to the rescue!
With that said, Tru Earth’s compostable cardboard packaging is no small victory. And it’s another reason way eco-strips are vastly more eco-friendly than liquid detergent.
In fact, Tru Earth claims that if everyone switched to eco-strips we could “eliminate one billion plastic jugs … saving 700 million from going to landfills.”
That’s an aggressive goal, but one absolutely worth shooting for and easy enough to contribute to.!
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One strip worked for our dog towels – very muddy load. We do have hard water too.
How do the strips perform in very hard water with a front load machine? Are they HE approved? Thanks
Hi Karen,
According to Tru Earth “you may want to increase the amount of detergent used if your water is very hard…”
These strips are fine for HE machines. For front load machines, it can be placed either in the detergent compartment (tear into small pieces) or directly in the machine.