Great Green Giveaway: Ecostore USA

What better way to start the second full week of the new year than with a great review and giveaway for some helpful green home and beauty products?

This review and giveaway comes courtesy of Ecostore USA, whose eco-friendly, plant-based household cleaning products are as effective as the leading supermarket brands, and their body and baby care products are gentle on your skin, natural, and non-toxic.

From Ecostore’s website:

All of our products are made from plant and mineral-based ingredients, free of toxic chemicals that bring people closer to nature with non-toxic, environmentally safe solutions that also help to reduce our carbon footprint.

Our products also help to ensure value for the dollar for our customers. We know it can be expensive to buy natural or organic products but we’ve found a way to safely super-concentrate our formulations. Our super-concentrates means that a little really does go a long way, saving you money by cutting down significantly on cost per use.

Now available in the USA market, Ecostore USA is partnered with a New Zealand-based ecostore: a mainstream choice in consumer products that helps people throughout New Zealand, Australia, and select locations in Asia and the UK, take better care of their health and homes. For even more information about our New Zealand partners, visit their site at www.ecostore.co.nz.

I had the pleasure of using six Ecostore USA products for two weeks so I could fully review them here on the site:

Laundry Liquid

Laundry detergent easily makes it onto my list of items I hate to buy. We all have them: those items that make it onto our list every month that we begrudgingly pay way too much for because we have to. Which brings me to why this laundry liquid beats all the rest. Beyond Ecostore USA using 100% Certified Organic Eucalyptus oil and plant-based ingredients (making it ideal for washing your and your children’s clothing-no chemical residues left behind!), it’s also super concentrated, which means you use much less per load than typical store-bought detergents.

Toilet Cleaner

I know it’s hard to get excited about toilet cleaner (or about cleaning the toilets), but this product really is different from the rest of toilet cleaners found in most conventional stores, and here’s why:

Because Ecostore USA’s Toilet Cleaner uses NO NASTY CHEMICALS, your toilet will not only be fresh and clean but safe for Earth’s waterways as well. Conventional products have released toxins, dyes and synthetic perfumes into toilets for years causing water degradation. Created with your environment in mind, this product is extraordinary.

I seriously can’t tell you how awesome I think the preceding paragraph is. And if that’s not enough, it works! Toilet clean! Nearly effortlessly. Win, win.

Manuka Sandalwood Shampoo & Conditioner

I chose this shampoo and conditioner set to review out of the three others (4 total) offered by Ecostore because it proclaimed to “restore a dry, flaky scalp,” and during winter my scalp can use just about all the help it can get. While I really do enjoy the shampoo and conditioner pairing, and have been noticing positive moisture results for both my head and hair, the only criticism I have is that I wish the conditioner bottle was bigger. My hair tends to “eat conditioner,” as my stylist has told me on more than one occasion, and so having a bigger conditioner bottle would mean less trips to Ecostore’s website to procure more conditioner. That being said, this shampoo has to be one of the most interesting smelling shampoos I have ever used, and I have fallen in love with it. It’s the mingling scents of lemon and the Manuka, Cedarwood Atlas, Sandalwood and Amyris oils that instantly reminded me of curry, and I can’t help but smile every morning as I’m using it. “My new Thai shampoo” I called it while describing it to my husband.

Manuka Honey & Kelp Soap

I don’t know about you, but during the winter months my skins suffers from a sudden onslaught of Endlessly Dry, and it’s difficult to find bath and beauty products that don’t contribute to the overall dryness already wreaking havoc on my sensitive skin. Ecostore’s Manuka Honey & Kelp Soap bar has been sitting cozily in my shower for two weeks now and and doesn’t dry my skin the way bar soap usually does. It’s also seemingly going to last forever, and can be used as a bath and body bar, or just as easily as your mainstay hand soap for the kitchen or bathroom. The kelp ingredient makes it a lovely green in color, and the bran helps it work as natural exfoliate, too. It also smells quite lovely.

Citrus Spray Cleaner

My favorite of all the Ecostore products I used, this all natural cleaner packs a powerful punch while not overwhelming your living space with Stinky Chemical Smell. The brilliant part, though, is how well it cleans all kinds of surfaces. I used this spray cleaner in the bathroom, the kitchen, the living room, and even on my kitchen floors. Every time I used the spray I becamse increasingly impressed with how well it works, and the clean citrus scent is the perfect addition to my newly clean surfaces.

Sounds pretty great, right?

Well here’s where it gets even better.

Ecostore USA is going to give one lucky 5 Minutes for Going Green reader a mixed bag of Ecostore products including:

1) Citrus Spray Cleaner

2) Laundry Liquid

3) Rosemary Orange Shampoo

4) Rosemary Orange Conditioner

5) Pure Oxygen Whitener

(Total retail value: $50 USD!)

How to get in on the green giveaway action? Simple.

1) Just leave a comment on this post any time between today and Sunday January 25th by 7pm EST and consider yourself entered. (Be sure to use a valid email address when leaving your entry comments, as I’ll use that email address to notify the winner of the contest.)

2) For a bonus entry, visit the Ecostore USA product page and then come back here to tell me which product you’d add to your mixed bag o’ goodies if you could.

On January 26th I’ll use a random number generator to pick a winner.

Some additional contest-related details, and to recap:

• As always, non bloggers are welcome to participate!
• Contest entries are open from Monday, January 12th through Sunday, January 25th at 7pm EST.
• Our winner will be drawn randomly and we will announce the winner Monday, January 26th. Please make sure to check our site and your email address to see if you have won a prize. We must receive your reply within 5 business days. (If you want your prize to arrive in time — the sooner we hear from you, the better!)
• This contest is open to US & Canadian shipping addresses. Due to legal restrictions, this promotion is not available in Arizona or Quebec.
• Please see our site’s Terms and Conditions of Use for a complete list of our Contest and Giveaway Rules.

Now, what are you waiting for? Get commenting! And be sure to spread the green giveaway word!

The EcoStore giveaway is now closed. Check back tomorrow for the winner!

An original 5 Minutes for Going Green post. Read more about all things Kerri Anne, including her renewed commitment to green living and her affinity for talking in movie quotes at Kerrianne.org. Have a furry friend at home? Be sure to check out Ecostore’s new pet-centric line.