I have used Proactiv for about a year and really like it. I still do get an occasional blemish, but they are more the type near the surface of the skin that only stay for a day or two, as opposed to the type that can wreck your whole week. The only downside I found to Proactiv was that it turned my khaki Tommy Hilfiger pillowsheets orange from some ingredient contained in the face scrub. It does have a fine-print warning on the box that it may bleach some fabrics, but it was still a bummer. I purchase most of my Proactiv products on ebay. They are much cheaper there than buying them directly from Proactiv. Obviously, prices vary on ebay, but I usually pay about eight dollars, plus shipping, for an individual bottle and around 35-40 dollars for the three-piece kit, which includes the mask.

@mamapinkey: Abridged answer: arguably any detergent in any temperature will clean better in soft water vs hard water, all other things being equal. Long-winded version: Soft water cleans everything better at all temperatures, by virtue of being soft water. This is due to the lower mineral deposit content in soft water. So the softer the water, the closer it will be to approaching distilled water (which, by way of comparison, is the ultimate soft water, with 0 parts per million (ppm) mineral content, since distilled water is created from condensation formed by steam, so there's nothing in it but pure h2o). The mineral deposit contents of your water hijack your detergents. The detergents latch on to the minerals instead of making their way to their designated destination (the dirt in your clothes), since the minerals will always get to the detergent first as soon as the water touches it. So the higher your water mineral content, the less detergent ends up left over and available to do what it's supposed to do. High mineral content is referred to as hard water (usually 150/200ppm+, depending who you ask). Because soft water has much less interference from mineral content, everything gets cleaner faster, and better, all while using less soap/detergent, and less residue remains after rinsing. Sorry for the long-winded explanation, but figured it'd be good to just put that out there in case anyone is reading who has heard "soft" and "hard" water thrown around, but without much clarification (I absolutely did not know the difference until I started having skin issues due to laundry detergent residue allergies about a year and a half ago). So back to your question: Soft water doesn't really require a detergent as well-built as this one (in any temperature). In either hot or cold soft water, a detergent like this might end up being overkill, as the sheer volume of water softening agents it contains indicates to me that it's designed for use in much harder water. So back to soft water. In soft water, it doesn't even matter, for example, whether your detergent is missing phosphates, which is a huge gripe nowadays (effectively, phosphate is pretty much a glorified water softener...see where this is going?), and you can get your clothes cleaner, in any temperature, with nearly any detergent (all other things being equal). People pay thousands of dollars to have whole-house water softeners installed because it just cleans stuff better (dishes, too), and it's also easier on your washing machine (less mineral/detergent residue). As far as the ingredients go... I'm super excited to see TAED in a US detergent in conjunction with the sodium carbonate peroxide (aka sodium percarbonate), which is the oxygen bleach. The TAED is a cold water bleach activator that's usually just found in Euro detergents (and they've been doing the eco thing so much longer, so their stuff tends to work better, in my experience). I don't use cold water, but think the science behind it is cool, for its own sake. And even though I purchased bulk sodium percarb off of Amazon, I've never been able to get the dosage amount quite right on my own without weakening my clothes (store-bought oxygen bleaches contain too many extra foaming ingredients for me since I use hot soft water)...but I love how well it cleans... And I get excited when a detergent contains a decent amount of it (they've obviously buffered it somehow). Per my original post, the sa8 did not work for me, but I'd recommend it to people who prefer to wash their stuff in cold water, and who also have hard water. I ended up returning my box of it to my dad (braving his disappointed look, lol), since I use hot water and it's very soft @72ppm, so this stuff actually foamed up too much for me for those reasons, which made rinsing difficult (the dark side of soft water haha). And no, I'm not an Amway sales rep. Are you?

So what ARE some good online/mail order sources for seed potatoes? i've been fairly successful buying locally, but nothing outside of stuff like Red Norland, Yukon Gold and Kennebec. I was stoked to find Purple Majesty at a larger nursery/garden center. The standard mail order seed companies usually carry a few varieties. Johnny's has a better selection, but minimum 5 lbs of any one variety (I'd rather do a pound or so of several). I have browsed Potato Garden and Irish Eyes. What are some others?

Buying new brick will be MUCH less expensive than paying to salvage old bricks. Unless the old bricks are architectural/rare/etc.