Trader Joe’s All Natural Peppermint Toothpaste

I’ve been using Trader Joe’s All Natural Anticavity Peppermint Toothpaste for a while now and I love it. It has baking soda and fluoride in it but doesn’t contain saccharin, lauryl sulphate or propylene glycol like a lot of major toothpastes.

The first thing you notice is that it’s an off white color and contains no fancy stripes. It is all natural, with the formula containing fluoride to prevent cavities and naturally hydrated silica to “polish your smile whiter”. It also has Essential Oil of Peppermint which has to be tried to see the difference to your normal toothpaste, much more “minty”.

I’ll admit, the freshness wears off a lot more quickly than the popular toothpaste brands but after trying another toothpaste at an overnight at a friends house, I can now never go back. They taste so artificial that I’m a convert for good.

You have to buy it in-store for $3.99 at Trader Joe’s though strangely you can buy it off Ebay too. Well, why not?! It is listed as being new…

For another toothpaste review, take a look at Adam’s review of Optima Aloe Dent.

Ford Hosts Weekly Live Chat

I’ve attended this a couple of times and realized I haven’t mentioned it to anyone. Every Tuesday at 9am PST, 12pm EST on their Ustream channel Michael Collins gives a the behind the scenes scoop on all things Ford. “The DigiKnow events will stimulate unique and informal conversations with experts from Ford, as well as providing demonstrations of some of the innovative Ford technologies”. They have had some great insights into the Ford Fusion and also NASCAR and hybrids.

You can see an archive of the shows here on YouTube. The Ustream channel is shown below if you happen to see this at the right time, else visit “>Ford DigiKnows every Tuesday at 9am PST or 12pm EST.

Organic English Beer Eco Product Review

Ah back to drinking beer. Proper English beer. Well at least that’s what it says on the label from Peter Scholey, a master brewer.

Sent to me by Vintage Roots, they sent a lot of other beers to compare this to and while I enjoyed it, it doesn’t stand out from the rest. Made with organically-grown Target hops and suitable for vegetarians and vegans, this is certainly a full-bodied beer. While quite flavoursome, I didn’t love it for some reason, the flavour wasn’t as nice as others I tested and I found the aftertaste a little strong.

Still, that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy drinking it, it’s quite an easy tipple. However if I was to chose a beer from Vintage Roots, I might go for another. Its Organic English Beer costs £1.85 for a 500ml bottle and is 4.1% in strength.

How To Cut Up To 40 Percent Of Your Utility Bill

Sears that it has selected Southern California for the national launch of an important new in-home service that can save homeowners up to 40% of their utility costs (according to Sears).

The Sears in-home energy audit is the latest one way homeowners can help make their home a little greener and make a dent in their utility costs as well. After a successful Orange County launch last fall, Sears has expanded its Sears Blue Climate Crew Home Energy Audit to all of L.A. County .

In contrast to the informal, do-it-yourself nature of free utility audits, the Sears audit is a comprehensive, four-step in-home diagnostic test that uses infrared cameras, giant door blowers and other state-of the-art technology to assess a home’s energy-efficiency, safety and comfort. The Sears audit is priced at $550 – a cost that is applied toward certain home improvement expenses implemented by Sears. Currently, L.A. homeowners can receive an introductory price of $275.

Participants receive a customized “roadmap” to improving their home’s energy efficiency — which can translate into reduced energy usage and up to a 40% reduction in their energy utility bills if they make the recommended improvements. You can watch how they do an audit here.

To prepare all you need to do is clean your fireplace, find your last 12 months of utility bills, spare 4 hours from your life, and of course, pay. Depending on your home, this could be a great way to save money (and energy) in the long run.

Ecosoapia Hand & Body Wash Eco Product Review

Sent to Life Goggles by Male Organics, this handwash promises to be like “sweet liquid magic”. I couldn’t wait to try it out!

Ecosoapia Hand & Body Wash is free from artificial colours, fragrances, synthetic preservatives, parabens, surfactants and is 100% vegan. I was sent the almond scented version and when I first used it thought I was eating a cake as it smelled like marzipan. In fact at first I thought the smell was too strong, but after using it, the smell left on my hands was more subtle and pleasant.

By the way, although the picture shows the almond version as well, the one I have it bright yellow in colour, not clear. I like this though, showing that the recipe varies each time and it isn’t as uniform as non-natural products.

Available from Male Organics, Ecosoapia Hand and Body Wash costs £6.00 for a 295ml bottle.

Another Two Ways To Save Money On Printing

With ink costing the equivalent of between $2,500 and $10,000 per gallon, it’s no wonder people look to reduce how much they use, as well as reducing paper use for eco reasons. Having previously mentioned ECO-SAFE and Green Print as ways to save money on printing, there are now two more ways.

EcoFont is a new font created in the Netherlands that’s designed to extend the life of ink cartridges and toner. An agency found that the best results were achieved using a font in which tiny circles were intentionally left blank in the middle of each line, much like Swiss cheese. The result is based on the Vera Sans, an open source letter, and uses up to 20 percent less ink than traditional fonts. Available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux, it’s also free to download and use. The Ecofont works best in OpenOffice, AppleWorks and MS Office 2007 at the 9- or 10-point size.
[Via: Springwise]

ecoPrint2 typically set up an internal print driver that allows you to print your documents using dramatically less ink or toner, as well as dramatically less paper through printing two pages per sheet from any software application. Once a document is ready for printing, you simply click on the print button and the “economy printing” dialog box quickly appears. You have the option to reduce the percentage of ink to be used, as well as the ability to print several pages on one sheet of paper. The ink saver tool allows you to reduce the consumption of ink by up to 75% without compromising legibility and the paper saving feature allows you to print multiple pages on one sheet and to move, delete or rearrange pages.

EcoDiscoveries AirZyme Odor Eliminator Product Review

EcoDiscoveries (“Safe has an effective side”) AirZyme fragrance free spray eliminates odor and protects indoor air quality. I have previously tested their tub & tile spray and their bathroom spray so have a good idea how good their products are.

I’ve never really likes some of those famous brands of odor remover, especially when you read things about Febreeze like this. So AirZyme claims not to harm the environment by using only water and a proprietary blend of enzymes and surfactants. Of course that can hide a few things, but if they like their other products then EcoDiscoveries don’t seem to be hiding anything as usual it is non-toxic, biodegradable, chlorine-free, petroleum-free, ammonia-free, phosphate-free, acid-free, caustic-free, fragrance-free, dye-free, Hypoallergenic and has not been tested on animals.

As we don’t have any pets (yet), no children, we don’t smoke and the house smells mainly of fresh paint, there was only really the bin/trash can to test it on, and it seemed to work great. It smells neutral, and isn’t sticky. one thing I would ask for is a better nozzle, it either seems to have jet stream or fire hose settings, no fine mist that I would have preferred.

Other EcoDiscoveries products include Moldzyme penetrates to remove mold at the source, eliminating stains and odors; Multizyme, the only safe and effective multipurpose solution on the market (apparently!); Glass for ammonia free, fragrance free, and streak free windows and mirrors; Kitchen is safe around food and family; Nursery is especially effective, gentle, innovative, and odorless.

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