Product Review : Bio-D For A Cleaner Environment
When you are aiming to reduce your negative footprint on our planet, but aiming to increase your positive footprint, then you have to do more than adjust your food intake to suit. As I say in my book “Organic Guinea Pig’s Health Revolution” it is also about lifestyle – this means changing many things about how you live, including personal hygiene products, beauty products and which household cleaning products you use. Many of these cleaning products are not only tested on animals in laboratories, but are also made with animal products, such as tallow (derived from beef fat) and placed into non recyclable and non recycled containers.
How wonderful then, that I should stumble across an advert for UK based Bio-D in an issue of Vegetarian magazine – in actual fact, all of Bio-D’s products are not just vegan “friendly”, they are actually approved by the Vegan Society and carry their logo. So we are on to a winner already and in addition all of the packaging they use is 100% recyclable! The products are made from 100% natural plant based, ethically sourced (fair trade), materials (they leave out all of the nasty chemicals that are found in standard products), to BS14001 environmental policy (which less than 1% of other British manufacturers do) and their prices are checked against competitors to ensure that their products are affordable.
I have so far tried out 4 of their products, on your behalf, in order to review them. They are : Laundry Liquid, All Purpose Sanitiser Spray, Aloe and Lime Hand Cleaner and Toilet Cleaner.
I purchased the one litre bottle of this for £4.85 (click the linked sub-heading above to be taken to the product) – there are fragranced liquids too which cost a little more. All in all, comparing to my usual Ecover product, the price was good and I felt that this represented good value, given what it represented to me in terms of how I want to live.
The liquid itself is a nice thick consistency, although I must admit that, at first, I didn’t like the smell very much (it was kind of rubbery). I have since overcome that initial dislike, because the product works well at cleaning my laundry, even at low temperatures. I am still on that same bottle 22 weeks later, but have just re-ordered (this time the Juniper fragrance). Given that before my partner sadly passed away in April, we were probably doing 3 or 4 washes a week (using a capful of liquid per wash) and I have since been doing just one, this bottle will have done around 40 washes. You may use more liquid per wash than I, but I have found 1 capful to be more than adequate to get my washing clean. To me that represents great value for money at just over 10p per wash.
The liquid can also be used to apply to heavy staining prior to washing in order to soften the stain, removing it at wash.
Finally, this product is Allergy UK certified as an “allergy friendly product”, because they do not use the enzymes that are found in other products (the things that most people are allergic to). So if you have allergies to washing powders and liquids, this one is for you.
Again, you can access the product by following the link in the sub-heading. This product costs £2.85, but again lasts a long time. I bought all of the first 3 products reviewed at the same time (7th February) and have only just had to re-order, and then only the laundry liquid. I use this product when my surfaces are heavily soiled from preparing meals for both myself and my animals and again a little goes a long way! I am only about half way down the bottle – it cleans well, removes grease and dirt from surfaces, all without leaving behind that residue that most surface cleaners leave behind.
Sanitising Handwash – Lime & Aloe Vera (500ml)
You get the idea – click on the link in the sub-heading to go to the Bio-D website and view the product. Ok so my first thought was £4.05 for a bottle of handwash??!! But I use it daily and still have nearly half of the bottle left! Value for money – I have been using it since the beginning of Feb and 5 months later am still using the same bottle. In addition, it is worth paying the extra to know that you are using an animal friendly, skin friendly, natural product without any awful chemicals in it.
It smells divine, and the smell remains for a long time, after you have dried your hands. Once more, you only need a small amount for it to be effective. I have used it after working in the garden and on my motorcycle and it has performed just as well if not better than conventional soaps. I am an animal assisted therapy practitioner and keep skunks who work with me as non-human therapists, a couple of weeks ago there was an incident in my garden and I received skunk spray at point blank range – the left side of my face and body received the odorous liquid and were left yellow and stinky! I used this product on my face arm and leg, before the skunk spray dried and it removed the yellow staining and the majority of the odour. About 2 hours later, I washed with the product again and the odour had gone completely. To me this example showed a natural product removing a natural problem….as we say here at OGP – fight nature with nature, hence why food is our medicine!
Yep, click on that link. I have only just received this, but thought I would give it a try. At £2.40 for 750ml, again I thought it represented good value when compared to my usual Ecover product.
I have 2 toilets in my home, and although I have only just received it, I have used it in both toilets. It has proved a good product already, both cleaning the toilet and leaving a pleasant smell in its wake – a smell that has remained for a good few flushes too!
All in all I would give Bio-D’s products 9 out of 10, just because nothing is ever perfect. I would highly recommend them if you are looking to make the move to incorporating your organic lifestyle for food, into a wholly environmentally friendly lifestyle.
