Larsi I thought I was bad at trying out new or different laundry products, but you got me beat by a mile! Your career profession wouldnt happen to be quality control/testing would it LOL. I now pass the crown to you man! BTW, what scent of downy do you use? At first I hated the new april fresh, it does stink in the bottle, but once I used and dry it, its pretty good. It is still not as nice as the orignal spril fresh scent.

gates1...LOL. Crown accepted! Love quality control/testing!

I miss my Original April Fresh Downy more than any laundry product! My formula I currently have been using for a while now.....1/2 April Fresh ("new" scent) and 1/2 Downy Unscented. After drying, it smells more like the original April Fresh. If you look at Downy.com, there are 1000's of complaints about the "new" April Fresh. I cannot believe P&G would be so stubborn. Coke made a BIG f*ck up years ago with the "New" Coke, but they righted their wrong. I wish P&G would do the same.

I will of course finish using Shaklee, due to the fact that it cost me $20...but it works no where near as well as Downy (but this seems to be the case with ALL "green" fabric softeners)!

I've gone back to Downy for most of my laundry. The closest performing natural FS to Downy that I've found is from Seventh Generation. However, it's still not as good. I will also say that even after using Charlie's Soap for a few months, the softness of my "residue free" clothes could not compare to those washed in regular detergent and rinsed with Downy.

My experience with the vast majority of natural products has been disappointing. It would appear that some natural products do more harm than good, at least in some cases. For instance, using CS on my silk and linen shirts has caused them to fade and to feel scratchy over time. I started washing them in Vaska and its matching FS, but the improvement has been only marginal. After just one wash in Tide HE Total Care and Downy has restored the whiteness, brightened the faded colors, and brought back the shirts' original softness. It took a product like Tide, which many consider the pinnacle of toxicity, to repair the damage caused by Charlie's Soap.

And by the way, while CS damaged my silk and linen shirts it did nothing to remove even the lightest of stains. Tide HE Total Care is not recommended for natural or protein based fibers - like silk and linen - due to it containing protease and cellulase enzymes. However, that seems to be much ado over nothing. The shirts came out of the washer in much better shape than when they went in.

Tide HE + Downy has allowed me to once again wear my silk and linen shirts with comfort.

I've settled on using Ultra Downey Pure Essentials. Not big on fabric softener; however, my wife is.

Paging Livebetter, Livebetter...where are you?

Not responding to a post that says "Shaklee has finally arrived"? I hope all is ok with her. This would be like me not responding to a post that said "Miele Sucks"!! LOL

So, yesterday I did 3 more loads using Shaklee Softener. What's odd, is that it left my towels and sheets very soft, fluffy and actually had a light, clean scent. When I use it on clothes, they do not feel as soft and the smell is totally non-existent!

I also have to use A LOT more than the bottle says, to even get a decent amount of softness. So, looks like this softener is very UN-economical. Still, for a "green" softener it is one of the best....but it is, compared to Downy, a real disappointment!!

Total Bummer, but thanks for reporting your findings. I've been looking at the Skaklee website and was thinking their products would be worth a try as I'm really looking for green alternatives.

I do like Vaska detergent and fabric softener but have not had much luck with other "green" fabric softeners. I've tried ecover and Mrs. Myers and found they didn't do much if anything in the softening department. Also didn't care for the Geranium scent on my clothing. I also tried the purex crystals. Great scent enhancer, but not great in the softening department.

I like the scent of Vernel peach and lemon blossom and sensitive skin, but it is pretty costly for me, especially when paired with Persil detergent.

Skin to skin contact with concentrated liquid tide and downy causes itchy reactions for me, so .... the search continues.

I've tried Ecover, Seventh Generation, Vaska and Method fabric softeners. I would rate Method the worst - it had the consistency of congealed gravy fat and did not soften well - with Ecover not far behind. The best softeners on this list are Seventh Generation and Vaska (even better if used w/ Vaska detergent). The Vaska detergent + FS combo cannot be beaten in my book, but sadly Vaska is only good at light cleaning so it gets used mostly on towels and sheets.

Seventh Generation and Vaska provide excellent softening - almost as good as Downy - and win as the overall best "natural" softeners in my household.

@Sstava...

Method makes the WORST fabric softener I have ever used. You hit the head on the nail. The consistency was like icky gravy fat. It did not smell that great, and in all honesty, I thought clothes felt better w/o the Method softener. So disgusting.

Seventh Generation actually softened quite well, but they only offer unscented or that odd Lavender/Eucalyptus scent (ick to me). I don't understand why they don't offer it in one of the water lily or water blossom scents!

Vaska Fabric Softener was horrible for me. Not only did it not soften, but left my laundry with a musty fishiness, that I just hated.

Downy seems to always just work!!

Yes, I'm back to good old Downy Free. When used after Tide HE, my clothes come out of the dryer with a light, clean Tide smell that I love. It reminds me of when I was a kid! :)

LOL ... I knew this would happen. I'm out of town and decided not to bring my laptop. I'm using my BILs now as I just had to see what was going on. Sitting in a Muskoka chair lake side and reading my favorite forum ... sweet ...

@Larsi, are you using enough?? It says 1 oz for a full load no? That would be 4 pumps of my pump which would be more than the small lid.

I def get scent when using full dose recommended. I also do find it softens (although as stated not as much as Downy).

Agree with your statement that it is the best green alternative I've found so far.

As for shipping, my family (including extended members like BIL/SIL, mother, aunt and some friends) use some Shaklee items. I order for us all and we split shipping.

If you do like the products, you can "join" as a member to save like ... 15%. Other alternative is to find a distributor in your area (and I'm sure there are several) who you could buy from direclty. That may save you shipping costs. Of course, if you ended up liking it that much.

@covingtoncat, I still think you should try it. Everyone is different and you may like it as much as me :)

I probably will bite the bullet and try it. Have to work thru my fs "blunders" first.

You have to be careful of Shaklee products. It is more about selling than it is about quality products. My sister sells it and I tried some. None that I tried worked better than my regular products. Also if I did want to buy them, I could save a lot of money by buying from someone higher up on the tier.

I know a college student that decided to do a test on the power of suggestion. He set up a display in a busy area and had the product names hidden. He told the testers to see if they could tell Coke from Pepsi. He also told them....."most people said that #1 was Coke". All the people that sampled said #1 was Coke and #2 was Pepsi.

Both products were Pepsi.

@vala55, I beg to differ re: your comment about quality. I am very familiar with the company and their R&D practices. They invest a lot of money in quality. Their supplements are used by many elite athletes.

An essential element of the Shaklee Difference is quality control through testing. Shaklee quality means first defining specifications for and then screening raw ingredients themselves for purity and potency, testing each batch of manufactured product to ensure that what is on the label is in the product and to ensure the product has not picked up any contaminants in the process of manufacture. Shaklee conducts over 80,000 of these tests annually, and then guarantees the performance of every product once it is in the consumerâÂÂs hands.

At the end of the day, EVERY company is trying to sell you something. That's how it works.

I also do not understand your comment about saving money by purchasing from higher up the "tier". Perhaps your sister is involved in a Shaklee group that is not doing business "appropriately". I've never heard of such a thing.

Lastly, while I understand your comments about the Pepsi, I don't see how it relates to this discussion. I use several Shaklee products (I don't use Shaklee exclusively) and I find them to be of excellent quality. I have tried almost all green fabric softeners available and theirs is definitely the best I have tried.

I don't recall anyone saying they were a miracle item that outperformed all others on the market.

Now I'm paging Larsi ... wondering if you read my comments re: amount of product used and what you think. Thanks!

We just returned from a week in Ontario's north. You should see the laundry (an addict's nirvana ... lol).

I actually did a huge load of my kids' darks last night with both Shaklee liquid detergent and FS. Things that were stained with marshmallow (toasting over a bonfire), dirt, syrup, beachy smells (I could go on ... ewe) all came out fresh and clean (and soft ;) ).

Anyway, as we all know, everyone's "chemistry" is different and so is their personal tastes.

Look forward to your further comments.

I meant to say that if you use 1 oz per load that small bottle should give you 64 laods which I think is pretty good. The bottle is pretty small for that many loads.

If I do a smaller than normal load, I will use a little less. Because each pump gives out 1/4 oz I've used 1/2 oz, 3/4 oz. or a full 1 oz.

It related to sales people hyping their products, things like our "water is wetter than water". That was one of their slogans that my sister was taught. She said that product would remove road tar from the car without scrubbing. I bought it, tried it and it was not a bit better than soap and water.

My Sis was trying to sell me one of their water filtering systems with reverse osmosis. I forget the figures now, but it was expensive. I checked with another dealer in my city and I could have saved a huge amount of money buying it from that dealer. My Sis's explanation was that "that" dealer was on a higher tier than she was and bought cheaper than she did.

In my opinion it is more about selling than quality. I tried the products and it didn't do any better than what I have used all of my life and it cost a lot more.

I tried a few products and found what I used regularly was just as good or better.

@vala55, it sounds to me like someone is "confused".

Your statement makes me think of the Basic H2 product. What they say is that it makes "water wetter". This is how most surfactants work. Surfactants lower the surface tension of a liquid. This allows the product to clean better.

Unfortunately a major problem with MLM is anybody can sign up and they don't have to be the sharpest knife in the drawer (I'm being polite here) so crazy things get said and done.

I take huge issue with people who post misinformation.

As for the quality, everyone is entitled to their opinion but mine is different than yours. I have nothing to gain here by my statements I just really enjoy the Shaklee products that I do use.

Shaklee is the number 1 nutritional company in the US and they've been around for 50 years. They must be doing something right.

Using their cleaning products is more about choosing products that are safer and greener as well as supporting a company who "gives back" (ie. off sets carbon emissions, plants one million trees, donates supplements to disaster victims, etc ...).

No one said they would work better than what you've been using all your life. They are "better" choices that work. If you choose to support P&G, Reckitt, whomever with your money - that's your choice.

Maybe making better choices isn't important to you so you cannot justify spending a little more ... I don't know. Maybe you do make greener choices but find cheaper "green" brands work for you ... who knows. You have not really said what products you are comparing to. In fact, you haven't even commented on whether you have used the exact product being discussed in this thread. I have used it (as has the original poster).

It sounds to me like maybe you take issue with a MLM business. In which case, that's your prerogative but please don't post misinformation.

Welcome home Livebetter!! Now get to that Laundry!

Yes, I was using enough Shaklee Softener. Some loads even quite a bit more than what is called for.

I still will stand my ground, and say that for a green fabric softener, it is quite good. But, I feel that is about as rational as saying for a Dictator, Mussolini was a good guy! LOL

I like my Downy SO much more!!!

I did not know it was "green", I did not ever hear my sister say that and I am not doubting what you said, it make sense. They have to have done something right to stay in business that long. I am all for green.

I have stopped using all brand name products regarding cleaning. I buy the cheapest I can find and found it cleans as well as the highly touted products like Tide. I do think of the environment. I rarely use chemicals except for termite control. I use soap and water for almost everything instead of Windex, toilet bowl cleaners, etc..

@vala55, it sounds to me like your sister needs to do a lot more reading about what Shaklee is all about (or maybe she just didn't share that with you??).

Being natural and "green" is at the very core of their business. It's how they were founded and how they continue today. It's why I appreciate them as a company and don't mind supporting them with my dollars.

I find it mystifying your sister hasn't talked about that.

This is direct from Shaklee's website:

Living in Harmony with Nature

"Follow the laws of nature and you'll never go wrong." - Dr. Forrest C. Shaklee

True words. Spoken in the age of machines and plastic.

Following Dr. Shaklee's advice, we draw from the wisdom of nature in everything we do.

What that means is we make products from the purest natural ingredients. And we take stringent measures to keep out pesticides, contaminants, and other unnatural things that simply don't belong there. But just as important as what we take from nature is what we don't take.

Our company was the first in the world to be Climate Neutral, which means we operate with a net zero impact on the earth.

Our world headquarters is a renowned model of environmental responsibility. We make products that are gentle on the planet. And we do not test on animals.

Ever since Shaklee was founded, we've been following the laws of nature. So far, we've never gone wrong.

In 1956 Dr. Shaklee founded Shaklee and decided to use the relatively unknown multi level marketing business model to market his products.

When everybody else was spending their marketing dollars on advertising, Shaklee invested what would amount to billions of dollars in rewards for people who spread the word. Not to mention millions of dollars in research and development.

Here is a link that might be useful: Shaklee Values

Never been impressed with Shaklee stuff. The products seemed to be mediocre.

The sellers were the biggest turn off. Everyone I've known that has been involved with them seemed to be a bit pushy with regards to the products. And they all seemed to be an all Shaklee or nothing else type of person.

@ itguy08

That sounds like an old school way of selling. I have seen those types of salespeople myself in other industries. In fact, I'm a successful realtor in Arizona who sells foreclosures all day long and I know something about sales. Consultative selling, where you actually provide information and value to your customer, is where it's at. Hard sell is a turn off, but show me an emotional connection to the product and give me a logical argument based on facts and I will listen.

And I will also say that even though I don't like MLM in theory, I applaud Shaklee and others like them for bypassing the traditional (and quite corrupt) distribution networks to create their own. I get excited anytime someone challenges the establishment.

@itguy08, Shaklee makes a ton of products; you were not specific about what products you are referring to.

Considering their supplements are used by many athletes (including the Olympic medal winning U.S. Ski Team and U.S. Snowboarding) can they be mediocre?

The lengths to which they go to ensure the quality of their products is impressive.

As mentioned earlier, individual distributors are the problem with MLM. Unfortunately no way to get around that. They don't interview to make sure they are not idiots.

I personally saw the products, did a lot of reading and decided to use them. I joined to buy for myself and some family/friends. I order myself and no one from Shaklee has ever asked more of me in the 3 years I've been using the products.

I am not exclusively a Shaklee person.

Honestly, I'm not sure Shaklee people are much different than other "company" people. We have several company (various) VPs who live on our street and they are all "rah rah sis boom bah" about the products their companies make and sell.

Everyone's just trying to make a buck. People take more offense when it's an MLM person than Target or Wal-Mart or P&G etc ...

I would rather my friend make a few bucks off me than one of those retailers - but that's me.

@sshrivastava, when you really read what Shaklee is doing as a company to "give back" it really is commendable.

I also think it's amazing that back in '56 Dr. Shaklee decided to use MLM because he wanted people to benefit not companies.

Anywho ... makes no difference to me if anyone uses it, but it would be good to do some reading and really understand the way the company works.

Here is a link that might be useful: Shaklee Athletes