Review: Feline Pine Scoop Clumping Cat Litter

Do you know which review I consistently get the most comments on? It's not a moisturizer or any of the many soaps I have reviewed, it's the cat litter. Which tells me that there's a real need out there for natural cat litters - we're all still searching for the holy grail of perfection.

Currently kitty and I are using Feline Pine clumping litter. I'm not exactly sure what I expected when I picked this up, but the very lightweight box should have tipped me off. Feline Pine Original is pellets but the Scoop variety is...sawdust. OK, it's sawdust with some guar gum added but it looks, smells, and acts just like sawdust.

The smell of this is quite pleasant - if you like sawdust. And actually, it's got very good odor control abilities. It really does keep the litter box smell down. The clumping ability is fairly adequate. However, I find that clumps fall apart pretty easily when scooped, so I end up not shaking the scoop too vigorously and throw away quite a lot of good litter with the used. This means that I go through a lot of this product, and at $5 a box (or thereabouts) that can add up pretty quickly. The real problem with this litter is that kitty and I track it all over the house. All over. It's so lightweight and clings tenaciously to you that it gets everywhere. The rugs and kitty's favorite lounging spot now need de-sawdusting on a regular basis.  And the floors? Sometimes I have visions of one of my shoes somehow getting involved in a criminal investigation and ending up puzzling the CSI as to the flecks of sawdust embedded in the insole: "it's as if this person was walking around barefoot in a lumber yard and then tracked the sawdust into her shoes.  But then there's minute quantities of guar gum and cat urine mixed in...?"

I am putting up with the sawdust because I like the odor control, and because it doesn't kick up clouds of dust with that chemical nostril burn that regular litter has.  In fact, we've been using it for months and have no current intention of switching. But it's not my holy grail.

Three stars.

Review: Ultra Dishmate Natural Grapefruit dishwashing cleaner

I've been having dishwasher issues lately, so I've been doing all my dishes by hand. It's been strangely calming and I have (don't tell anyone) enjoyed doing it, which is in stark contrast to other times when the dishwasher has had mechanical problems and I have rushed to have it fixed before doing anything else.

Dishmate is made by Earth Friendly Products, and it's about $3.99 online for 25 oz, though I can't remember what I paid for it - I bought it when it was on special offer. I like that the cleaner itself is more or less transparent - it has a very slight yellowy/peachy tinge to it. I much prefer when manufacturers don't waste chemicals just coloring up something to make it look "prettier." The scent is a nice mild grapefruit - it is quite true to life, and is mildly uplifting and not at all overpowering.

However, despite the label's claims that the cleaner is very concentrated and that a little goes a long way, I have found myself using quite a lot of it. It seems to lose steam quite quickly and gives up the ghost with pretty much any sautee pan with a small amount of grease on it. So I end up using more and more in order to try to get the pan clean. It seems fine for dishes at the beginning of the wash, but the bubbles don't last a terribly long time. Call me a bubble freak if you will, but having done a dishwashing job in the dim and distant past while at school, I know that once the bubbles have gone, the grease fighting ability goes fairly quickly afterwards.

One nice thing is that it doesn't seem to leave a residue on the dishes, and even glasses can be done without rinsing them afterwards but just letting them drip dry - they still seem to sparkle. As it's a saving on water if you don't rinse, that's a good thing in my book.

Comparing it to my last dishwashing detergent, which was Mrs. Meyers - green but definitely not budget, I'd say that the Mrs. Meyers has Dishmate beat very slightly on effectiveness. I used slightly less Mrs. Meyers to do the same job. But all-in-all, this is a good product, and what with the dark color of the Mrs. Meyers and the increased price, I think I'll stick with the Dishmate. I expect that using a tad more of Dishmate which doesn't contain color chemicals vs. a tad less of the Mrs. Meyers which does, it's probably a wash (pun, geddit?) as to how many chemicals in total go down the drain.

3 stars.

Review: Arm & Hammer Essentials Natural Clumping Litter

This kitty litter promises to be "so effective, you won’t believe it is natural! It harnesses the power of nature to deliver outstanding odor elimination." I am not quite sure if the writers of this ad copy were using quite the same kitty litter as me, or whether they even know the meaning of the term "odor elimination."

This stuff is awful, in my view. First, it doesn't eliminate odor at all. In fact, my house now stinks of cat pee. Which is not a very welcoming smell to come home to, I've got to say. Second, it doesn't clump well. Wait, I should rephrase that - it clumps fine enough when the cat pees on it, but when you go to actually scoop up the clump, it falls instantly apart, breaking back into a powdery mess without any hint of clumpage remaining. Except now the powdery mess stinks, which doesn't please me OR the cat, and as I can't manage to scoop all of it up, it just adds to the ammoniacal whiff that is constantly coming off the box.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I admit that I am not the type to completely empty the kitty litter constantly so that I can refresh with all new litter - I know I do not do this as often as I should because I usually try to get to the end of a bag or box before emptying the old stuff and scrubbing the litter box clean. So perhaps my testing is not in accordance with manufacturer's instructions. I've read a few other reviews on this, which seem to either be completely glowing, or completely awful, making me wonder if the people that love this are reviewing it for the money or somehow completely emptying and scrubbing/bleaching their litter boxes every night.

Put me in the "awful" camp. I really didn't like this, and can't muster up any stars for it, I'm afraid.

Review: Ecover Automatic Dishwashing Tablets

Have you looked lately for a green automatic dishwasher detergent? They are hard to find. I don't know if we're all supposed to be handwashing dishes in a mountain stream or something, but I'm sorry, I don't do that.

I had been using the Mrs. Meyer's dishwashing powder, which I loved - it worked well, it was a loose powder so I could choose how much to use, and it had a nice smell. The only problem was that it came in a plain cardboard box, so the humidity had turned it into a solid brick. I had to rip the box apart, put the brick into some large ziploc bags and hammer it apart. Oh, and the other problem was that I was concerned that it wasn't especially frugal.

I decided to try the Ecover tablets, even though I think tablets are a bit wasteful. After all, they come individually wrapped in plastic which surely adds to the waste stream. And you might end up using more detergent than you need, especially if you have a small dishwasher like I do, or you are washing things that aren't heavily soiled.

These are available for about $6.99, so they're not especially frugal either, but I'd got to the point where the Mrs. Meyers had run out and I was getting desperate!

I really don't like them. I have had to run everything through the dishwasher at least twice, and even then had to carefully pick out the dishes that were clean enough to put away (though not as clean as I'd like), in order to try to start washing some other things. I even had to (gasp!) do some hand washing to keep up.

I'm going back to the Mrs. Meyers for now. One star for Ecover.

Review: Kitchen cleaner comparison

I have a bad habit of forgetting that I have plenty of kitchen surface cleaner, and buying more.  Or something new and sparkly catches my eye in the store and it goes into the shopping cart before I've even really thought if I need it. I vow to be better at this, and actually organize my cleaning supplies to prevent overbuying in the future, I promise! However, my poor shopping habits meant that I have ended up with several different cleaning products at home, so in the interests of science I decided to conduct a cleaning experiment. Yesterday, therefore, I carefully spread a greasy concoction of salad dressings, mustard and marinade over my granite kitchen countertops and left it to dry, then set to it to see which cleaners worked better. I also ended up trying them all out on my stainless steel stove hood/extractor fan thingie, to see how well they performed on metal. 

The contenders were:

1. Ecover Glass & Surface Cleaner. This is not a very frugal choice. It retails for about $4.50 for 16 ounces, and I haven't come across a refill for it, though I hope one exists - there's a lot of plastic in those spray heads that we don't need to be using up every time. I have seen a refill of their all-purpose cleaner, but I'm not sure if there is one to the glass & surface cleaner. It has a light, fresh and vaguely citrusy scent that is hard to place but is pleasant enough. I'd originally bought this one just to use as a glass cleaner, and hadn't previously tried it on kitchen grease.

2. Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Countertop Spray in geranium scent. Again, not a frugal choice as it retails for about $4.99 for 16 ounces. A large refill bottle is available of the general purpose cleaner, but not the countertop spray - the bottle says the countertop spray contains an additional vegetable protein extract to remove odors from kitchen and bath. I bought this one for the scent, which is a lovely lemony-floral, rosy-minty geranium. I have several products from the Mrs. Meyer's range, and they do make the kitchen and bathroom smell lovely, so it definitely helps me get on with the cleaning chores that I might otherwise be reluctant to tackle. The bottle includes a "common sense caution" to avoid eye contact. 

3. Clorox GreenWorks Natural All-Purpose Cleaner. I decided to try this one as I felt guilty about the amount of money I was spending on products. I worry about how green it is, as it is first of all made by Clorox, and secondly has "CAUTION: EYE IRRITANT" on it although it is endorsed by the Sierra Club. The bottle is about $3.29 for 32 ounces, though I have spotted it in Walmart and Target, so I am sure it is cheaper there. I have also seen a large refill bottle available. The scent of this cleaner is quite lemony, and it has a light green color.

4. Arm & Hammer Essentials Multi-Surface cleaner.  This caught my eye as it is sold as an empty 32 oz spray bottle, with a mini bottle of concentrate attached to it. You fill the bottle up with water when you get home, add the concentrate and voila. This is a pretty darn good idea for transport purposes, as it costs less to transport lighter weight products.  The "starter kit" was $2.99, and refills are available as a package of the two mini bottles for $3.99. It is a shockingly deep green color, so they went completely overboard on the colorant. I also tried to find the ingredients of this online yesterday but failed miserably, so I don't know how environmentally friendly it really is. This bottle has several cautions in large letters - the front says "CAUTION: EYE IRRITANT, MAY BE HARMFUL IF SWALLOWED" and the back says "CAUTION: CONCENTRATE IS COMBUSTIBLE". The cautions do not give me the warm fuzzies on this one, I have to say.  This one smells the most ammoniacal - I can't place the scent as it mostly just smells of cleaning fluid to me.  This is clearly the least "green" of the cleaners I tried.

I also initially tried a Seventh Generation bathroom cleaner, but quickly took it out of contention because bathroom cleaners don't typically have degreasers, and as I'd created a big ole greasy mess that it was struggling with, I didn't think it was a fair comparison. 

First test - grease fighting. All four cleaners were surprisingly close in how well they performed on my greasy, dried up lake o' salad dressings.  The Clorox cleaner got more sudsy than the others, so required an extra wipe or two to clean up the suds. But it was very hard to declare a winner on this test. The Ecover particularly surprised me, as I'd never even tried it in the kitchen before, and had it pegged as a lightweight, but it definitely kept up with the big boys. If I had to put it in order of efficacy, I'd say the Ecover and the Arm & Hammer came out top, the Clorox was next (but only marked down due to having to do an extra wipe to clear off the suds) and the Mrs. Meyers was last. I want to stress, though, that these are marginal differences - all performed admirably and I'd be happy to use any of them.

Second test - cleaning greasy stainless steel. I admit, I don't get up on a chair and clean the stove hood very often. This was therefore a tough test, with grease and dust to shift. Again, all four products cleaned admirably. If I had to declare winners, it comes down to the lack of streaks left behind, and the Ecover and Mrs. Meyers seemed better on that score. I double-checked streakiness on the front of the fridge, which is a brushed stainless steel, and there again the Ecover and Mrs. Meyers worked the best - Ecover being slightly better.

All in all, I feel I have to declare Ecover the winner, which I found quite surprising as I expected it to be the least efficacious. Part of this is due to the fact that one product will work well on kitchen countertops, stainless steel, AND glass (I've used it on the shower door several times and it does OK there too) - there shouldn't be a need to have several different spray bottles at one time. It's also vegan and seems the most environmentally sound product of all four - no scary warnings on this label! My concern is in the cost, but if I can find a refill bottle I think I will switch to using this one all the time.

Second place goes to the Clorox because of the price. It worked well on the kitchen counter mess, but I don't think I'd want to use it on metal or glass.

Third place (though it was very nearly a tie for second with Clorox) goes to Mrs. Meyer's. I do love the scent, and it did well in the streakiness stakes. In the end, the higher cost marked it down.

Fourth place goes to Arm & Hammer. It worked great on the greasy mess, but alas, all those warnings and the crazy color are off-putting because they imply that this contains lots of chemicals. I wish they'd have put the ingredients on the web, too. The price is good, and I like the concept of selling just the concentrate, but it just doesn't seem green enough.

Of course, if I was being uber frugal and green, I'd make my own cleaning products, but I don't think I'm ready for that yet - maybe one day, eh?

Taking steps to make your home more energy efficient

I just spent a very nice hour with some energy efficiency guys that came over to discuss what next steps I should be taking to make my home more energy efficient and treehugger-y. It was quite an enlightening experience!

But first things first. They said that absolutely the first steps you should take are:

1. Buy CFL (or LED) bulbs and replace your incandescent bulbs.
2. Buy power strips and put your electronics on the power strip and turn it off when you are not using it. Or, you know, unplug them. No more "standby" mode sucking power constantly.

The green frugalista has already done both of those. The TV/DVD and the wireless internet thingie are both hooked up to power strips that go off when not in use. Most of the bulbs are already CFL, although I have some recessed lighting in the kitchen that I had not switched because I didn't see any similar bulbs for sale. The energy guys assured me that I would be able to find them if I looked, so that is my next mission.

Both of these are cheap steps, so if you haven't done anything because you are paralyzed with indecision or think that things will be expensive, that's where you should concentrate your first efforts. There are also "usage" steps where you don't need to buy anything, you just need to use things less/more efficiently - like using cold water to do laundry, not using the dryer on a sunny day but instead hanging your clothes to dry, turning the thermostat up (or down, depending on the season) a degree or two. I also try to do as many of these as possible.

The next step up has been stumping me for a long time, though. Being frugal, I want bang for my buck. I don't want to spend a lot of money on a solar power system only to have it not save me much in terms of electricity usage. So I was never sure whether to replace the windows, put more insulation in the attic, have a solar or tankless hot water heater, have the a/c unit upgraded or what.

And what I found out was that the answer of what the next step should be depends completely on your home type, your household and where you live (as in, do you live in a hot or cold climate and need more cooling than heating or vice versa). No wonder I was confused, as I kept coming across seemingly contradictory advice because the advice varies so much. So the answer is...the next step is to:

3. Get some energy guys in, and have them check out and audit your home and your energy usage. You can either get your power company to come and do an audit, or a separate green energy consultancy/contractor. Get out your old power bills, and sit down and talk with them about your usage. It is either free or quite low cost to have someone come out.

Surprisingly, my next steps as recommended by my energy guys are not what I thought they would be. I am already frugal on the hot water front (cold water is now my laundry friend) so a solar water heater or tankless heater would not bring me large savings. It would be different if I had a larger family with hot showers being constantly taken and a bazillion loads of laundry being done a week. Similarly, my windows are fairly new and would cost far more to upgrade than I would save. However, because I live in a hot part of the world, my biggest costs and energy usage goes to air conditioning, so that's where we need to focus our effort, mainly in insulation and duct work improvements.

So my next steps (remember - your mileage may vary) involve:
4. Installing a UV-blocking film on one or two of the windows that need it and don't already have it. The energy guys recommended doing this myself, using a kit I can pick up from Home Depot or somewhere similar. I'd already done the south facing windows but they said to do west facing windows too.
5. Having the power company come and check for a/c duct work and window leaks. Have the leaks sealed. The power company will come and do this check for a mere $35. Window leaks can be sealed by the homeowner cheaply, using a sealant you can pick up at most hardware/DIY stores. For the ductwork I'll need to get an a/c company in and it might cost a few hundred dollars.
6. After the ductwork is nicely sealed, install more insulation, on the underside of the roof (I already have it on the floor of the attic, but as the a/c ducts run above that insulation, the energy guys recommended having insulation added above the duct work so that the ducts aren't sitting in a hot attic). They recommended Icynene which will be a few thousand but hopefully will have a quick payback in terms of lower cooling costs.
7. Think about solar power. Eek! This may be more than the green frugalista's budget can stand, but the energy guys are going to look into costs and financing. In fact, they said they could work out an entire 10-year plan for me on what I should be thinking about doing, and when, based on the age of the a/c system and windows and all that jazz. So I told them to knock themselves out with a plan and we'll go from there - hey, I figure even just having a plan is going to be valuable, either for myself or for the next owner.

I hope this helps someone out there. I'm pretty pleased I had these guys come out, as now I am not left flopping about with indecision. Get some energy guys! I found mine by Googling.