an OK washing up liquid. (Ecover Washing Up Liquid)

Member Name: I-tried-this

Product:	Ecover Washing Up Liquid
Date:	07/09/08 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Its environmentally sound

Disadvantages: It requires elbow grease

The reason I decided to try Ecover, was to begin with, I was given a free sample, its important to state this as Ecover are a very generous brand and its well worth visiting their site as they do have freebies such as the mini 50ml bottle I received.

Normally Ecover retails in most supermarkets for around £1 a 500ml bottle (98p to be exact in Tescos and Sainsbury) which is just a little more expensive then my normal brand, Fairy which is 88p and I will be using for comparison purposes here.

Ecover is an ethical and environmentally friendly company, their ethos is to not hurt the environment or to do as little to effect it as possible. So they use recycled containers which then when used can also be recycled. This bottle is made of a polyethylene and polypropylene which are both 100% recyclable and use a low energy process to do this. (Taken from their website) they use ingredients which is either natural or not harmful to the environment, this is mentioned on the website as minimum impact on aquatic life, and they also do refills instead of you needing to buy a whole new bottle. They also do a growing variety of home cleaning products from washing-up liquid to clothes washing powder, air freshener,

The liquid has a very mild lemony scent, (this is because it has lemon in it). It claims to be kind to your skin, have no unnecessary chemicals and to clean and degrease easily. Basically it is claiming to be the environmentally friendly version of Fairy.

One squirt was all that is required, though I have to say I didn't use just one squirt and am admittedly a bit slap happy when it comes to washing up liquid, for two reasons.
Firstly I like the bubbles, I also hate washing up so having many many clouds of bubbles is the closest I can get to adding fun to what is a very dull job. As a kid I used to love bubble baths when my dad would prepare the bubbles by frothing up the water until the bubbles seriously came over the sides of the bath and onto the floor. As a 4 year old I used to think this was fantastic- and I guess this is the reason why I require many many bubbles if I am to be enticed to wash up my dishes.
The second reason I pour in as much liquid as I do is that I am aware that if you don't have enough detergent, your screwed as adding more to an already full sink wont work, it wont be dissolved and make little difference to the cleaning process.
I think I put in about 15 to 25mls a time. A drop would be about 5 mls.

I put my dirty plates into the sink, poured over my Ecover liquid and started the hot tap. Within 5 minutes the bubbles where everywhere! They weren't joking when they said it produces 'excessive bubbles!' Way more then Fairy- and they didn't all disappear when I started to wash up either, they had real staying power!

The washing up process wasn't as pain free as with fairy though, where despite me leaving the dishes to soak for about 10 minutes, I did still need to use quite a bit of elbow grease to remove some of the more dried on dirt. I think my problem is that I don't use any fats or oils when I cook, everything is low low low fat or fat free, so this could have made my cleaning that much harder then other peoples. I cannot give you an indication on how this would dissolve fats or grease simply as I don't use any. So it may be better aimed at dealing with these types of problems.

After washing up, the scent had gone, just as with Fairy it smells nice to use but is really quite mild so washes away when your done.

My hands didn't feel dry or irritated, they don't normally when I wash up, but I thought it would be a good idea to mention that here as Ecover do make the claim that its kind to your hands. Its very much like fairy in my opinion for hands. You know and feel that you have done your washing up as your hands are super clean and slightly pink from being in hot water. But they don't feel overly dry, nor moisturised. They feel normal.

Overall I like Ecover, they are a brand that aims to preserve and help the environment which I think would be enough to persuade me to try other products they make. But as for washing up liquid, I did not appreciate the scrubbing I had to do where as with Fairy I can leave things to soak, come back after 10 minutes and the vast majority just slides off the plates with water. So I don't think I will be buying this one again- unless they improve it, which is a little sad as I am in two about this, in one mind I want to help the environment, but the sacrifice of requiring much scrubbing is too much for me- I know that sounds really lazy, but I don't think I can explain in words just how much I despise washing up!

Summary: Sadly, not as good as fairy