A few months ago I was sent a package of Ecover Zero products to review. What with spending the first trimester of this pregnancy not wanting to look at a computer screen, and having a very busy December, I’ve only just got around to writing my review – but it does mean that I’ve had plenty of time to properly test out the products I was sent.
It was a nice surprise to see the products arrive in a nicely presented canvas bag (we love canvas bags in this house). That and the inclusion of the fabric cleaning cloths really gave me the impression that Ecover are a company that really do care about being environmentally friendly.
The Good Points:
I’ve used Ecover Washing Up liquid before and didn’t really rate it. It didn’t seem to wash as well or last as long as other brands. However, I haven’t found the same problems with this bottle of Ecover Zero washing up liquid and, depending on price, I would buy this product again.
The laundry detergent and fabric softener did not make Arlo come out in a rash. Every time I change our laundry products it seems Arlo has a reaction (at the moment he has a horrible rash due to me using Tesco fabric softener in a couple of washes), but he was absolutely fine with the Ecover Zero range.
The Bad Points:
I didn’t find that the laundry detergent cleaned as well as the non-bio brand that we usually use. It didn’t shift the mud on Sam’s jeans (I washed them twice and it still didn’t shift, so I had to use our usual washing powder and they came out clean).
The Ecover Zero range is fragrance-free, but I actually prefer fragranced detergent as I liked that ‘freshly washed’ smell to my clothes.
At the risk of making Sam sound really smelly (he’s not!), the laundry detergent did something really odd to his work shirts. Before washing there would be no smell, but after washing the underarms of his shirts smelled really strongly of your typical boy-type underarm smells. I’ve never experienced that happening with any other laundry products I’ve used, it was really very odd. I tried experimenting with putting the detergent straight in the drum rather than in the drawer, and increasing the quantities of detergent until I was using to twice the amount recommended on the bottle. I washed the same shirt three times in a row and the results were no better. Sadly, the only thing that ‘fixed’ this was to go back and use my usual detergent.
In summary, we found the fabric softener and the washing up liquid great, but the laundry detergent wasn’t great at stain or smell removal so I wouldn’t buy it again.
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We were sent a selection of Ecover Zero products for the purpose of this review.
