Becoming Crunchy

SmartKlean Laundry Ball

This is a joint giveaway with Becoming Crunchy and Natural Parents Network. You may enter at one site only. Please find the section marked “Win it!” for the mandatory main entry and optional bonus entries.

I first heard of the SmartKlean Laundry ball back in January after reading a review by The Soft Landing.

I was very intrigued, but not quite ready to give them a try as I had just stocked up on another laundry soap (yes, the SmartKlean laundry balls are used to wash your clothes).

They continued to be at the back of my mind, however, and at a recent visit to the Toronto Green Living Show I had the chance to purchase two laundry balls and give them a try – with a 30 day money back guarantee, what was there to lose?

Within days of using them I was so impressed that I knew I had to share through a review – and when I contacted the company they generously offered to donate 3 SmartKlean Laundry Balls for 3 lucky winners!

Read on to find out more about this great product…

What The Heck Is A SmartKlean Laundry Ball?

This innovative product was designed to replace laundry soap completely – you use it instead of your detergent.

That was the most appealing thing to me upon first hearing of it, as with Baby Bean I am always looking for ways to reduce toxins in our home, and laundry soap can be one of the biggest toxic offenders out there.

I’d found some pretty decent non-toxic alternatives and I’m sure you know of some yourself, but the idea of no soap sounded like the best possible option – if it actually worked.

But how does it work?

Here’s the short version – detergent doesn’t really ‘wash’ clothes in the way you might think – it is water – not soap, that actually cleans your clothing. Most detergents use a chemical process to make that happen.

The SmartKlean ball (made from safe and recyclable thermoplastic that contains no PVC’s) is filled with ceramic beads comprising a different combination of minerals in each bead. What they do to the water in your washing machine causes the same end result as the detergent, but physically – without the harsh chemicals. You can get a more in depth version of that here.

My Experience

I’ll admit – I was pretty skeptical of this whole thing at first – it just sounds kinda weird, right?

Along with that, my main concerns were with washing my cloth diapers. In the original review I found, they suggested adding fine sea salt and vinegar into the wash with the laundry ball to get the diapers to come out clean.

In all honesty, I wasn’t down with that – I wanted to see if the ball would work on its own as purchasing more things to add in seemed to kind of defeat the purpose.

From the first time I tried it, the SmartKlean laundry ball worked better than any detergent I’ve ever used.

Let me tell you – I don’t pre-soak my diapers, and I don’t spend a lot of time rinsing the poop – I just make sure to get the solids off (I just don’t really care if they get stained and hanging them in the sun takes stains out anyway).

As a test, I’ve smelled every single diaper as each came out of the machine after washing with the ball multiple times, and I’ve never caught a whiff of pee or poop. Along with that, there has hardly been ANY staining from poopy diapers, something that was a fairly frequent occurrence when I was using detergent.

Every load has smelled clean, felt clean, was clean – this thing really works!

And of course, it cleans any other type of clothing wonderfully as well – it even takes the chlorine smell out of my swimming suit better than detergent (though not perfectly – and I’ve never found anything that does.) Still, I know I’m very happy to have made the switch. Here’s a full breakdown of pros and cons:

Pros

• Completely non-toxic and totally unscented.
  
• Lasts for 365 washes (more economical than purchasing detergent).
• Easy to maintain – you only need to set the ball out in the sun for a few hours once a month to rejuvenate the ceramic beads.
• Very sustainable – minimal packaging AND you can wash in cold water – and since there’s no residue possible, you don’t even need to rinse!
• You can use it in any kind of washing machine, including High Efficiency and front loaders.
• Great customer service – when I was first interested in purchasing I e-mailed the company and asked several questions; they got back to me right away and were very helpful. When I did buy several months later, the people I purchased from were friendly and knowledgeable, and they offered a 30 day money back guarantee if I was not satisfied for any reason (if you purchase directly from SmartKlean, they offer a 15 day money back guarantee).

Cons

• It’s something of an investment – one ball is $45 US, so it has an up-front cost (similar to cloth diapers). But you do save money in the end, as each ball lasts for 365 washes.
• You will probably need more than 1 laundry ball. 1 ball is good for 18 lbs of laundry, which is a small/medium load. I use 2 per load myself – sufficient for a large load – but when I occasionally overload it (I have a very large washing machine so I have to be careful!), the clothing very obviously does not get clean.
• It’s not a stain remover, so if you are concerned about stains it’s important to pre-treat them.

When I Asked About Staining, This Was Their Recommendation:

Both the laundry ball and detergent perform the same action inside the water, which is to activate the water molecules to remove dirt. The only difference is that detergent does this in a chemical way while the laundry ball works in a physical way. With that in mind, neither the washing ball or detergent will remove stains.

That being said, for lightly soiled laundry, to boost the cleansing power of the ball and also to soften the clothes after washing them, you can add a 1/4 of a cup of sea salt and 1/4 of white vinegar. This is not required, but as an option you can try this. (Again, I have never found adding anything extra to be necessary).

For heavier stains, you will want to pre-treat with whatever your go to stain remover is. Also, make sure to reduce the amount of clothes in the load to wash pre-treated clothes in order to allow them to circulate in washer more freely, helping the laundry ball clean these items more efficiently.

After using this method of washing for over 2 months now I can say I am 100% pleased with the SmartKlean laundry ball and will happily recommend it to anyone – including fellow cloth diapering families.

Buy It

You can visit HERE to purchase your SmartKlean laundry ball, and when you go through this link you’ll receive FREE shipping for being a Becoming Crunchy reader (free shipping available to US residents only).

Find SmartKlean on Facebook.

Win It

For your own chance to win a SmartKlean Laundry Ball from the SmartKlean Corporation, enter in the comments below! 3 lucky winners will each win 1 laundry ball! Contest is open to the United States and Canadian mailing addresses only.

MAIN ENTRY: Visit the SmartKlean FAQ and tell us something you learned!

Leave a valid email address in at least one of your comments so we can contact you if you win. You can write them like this to foil spambots: mail {at} naturalparentsnetwork {dot} com.

This is a joint giveaway with Becoming Crunchy and Natural Parents Network, a site to inform, empower, and inspire attachment parents interested in a natural lifestyle. You may enter at one site only, and we’ll be recording IP addresses to ensure that there are no duplicate entries. That said, please do visit and enjoy both sites!

BONUS ENTRIES, after completing the mandatory entry above to increase your chance of winning (leave a separate comment for each so we can count them all):

• Tell us why you are interested in trying the SmartKlean Laundry Ball.
• Subscribe to the SmartKlean blog by e-mail (right hand sidebar of their blog).
• Subscribe to Becoming Crunchy in a reader or by email (1 entry for each).
• Subscribe to Natural Parents Network in a reader or by email (1 entry for each).
• Leave a relevant comment on a non-giveaway article at Natural Parents Network and tell us which post (comment on separate posts for up to 3 entries total).
• Like Becoming Crunchy on Facebook.
• Like Natural Parents Network on Facebook.
• Post this giveaway on your Facebook page or wall and leave the link (1 entry). You can use this status update: Enter to win a SmartKlean Laundry Ball from @BecomingCrunchy and @Natural Parents Network. Contest ends August 13th and is open to US & Canadian shipping addresses. Be sure to attach the contest URL to your update! (This is not part of the status text!)
• Follow @SmartKlean on Twitter and leave your Twitter name in the comment.
• Follow @BecomingCrunchy on Twitter and leave your Twitter name in the comment.
• Follow @NatParNet on Twitter and leave your Twitter name in the comment.
• Tweet about this giveaway (up to 5 times total, at least 24 hours apart). You can tweet this text: #Win a @SmartKlean Laundry Ball from @BecomingCrunchy & @NatParNet! #giveaway http://wp.me/p1qmQy-sk {8.13, US/CAN}
• Enter another of the giveaways on Natural Parents Network (1 extra entry per giveaway — check back for more).
• Put the Natural Parents Network badge on your website or add http://NaturalParentsNetwork.com to your text blogroll for 2 extra entries each. The HTML code for the badge is in the sidebar to the right on Natural Parents Network. Leave your site URL in the comment.

RULES:

• Contest open to U.S. and Canadian mailing addresses.
• Contestants may enter at either Becoming Crunchy or Natural Parents Network but not both. Entries will be combined for the drawing of a single winner.
• Leave each entry as a separate comment so we can count them all.
• For actions like following and subscribing, if you already follow or subscribe, just let us know in your comment.
• For tasks that garner you multiple entries, you can copy and paste the comment with a #1, #2, etc.
• You don’t have to do any of the bonus entries, but you do have to complete the first mandatory one.
• We will pick the winner through Random.org after the contest closes and send an email notification. Leave a valid email address as you comment so we can contact you if you win. If we can’t reach a winner or don’t hear back within a couple days, we’ll draw a new name.
• Any questions, let our giveaway coordinator know: ShannonR {at} NaturalParentsNetwork {dot} com

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