Product Spotlight - SmartKlean Laundry Ball

In honor St. Patrick's Day, Product Spotlight's for the month of March will all be very GREEN (environmentally friendly) products!

This week, I will be hi-lighting one of my favorite Pittsburgh Alkaline Water products, the SmartKlean Laundry Ball! Green both literally and figuratively!

The SmartKlean Laundry Ball is a non-toxic alternative to laundry detergent, fabric softener, & dryer sheets, all in one! Yes, that means that when you switch to the SmartKlean you will no longer use detergent when washing laundry. Does that make

you uncomfortable? Well, I was a little uncomfortable with the idea, too, at first. Laundry detergent is such a norm that we feel like it's essential! And, seriously, who can argue with the cute Snuggle Bear?!? But, we must start realizing that we have been fed commercial propaganda all of our lives to sell a product... A product that is not only dangerous to the environment, but to ourselves and our families as well.

When presenting the SmartKlean Laundry Ball, often times people will skeptically ask me, "How can it clean clothes without detergent?" I reply by asking them how detergent cleans clothes, and, usually, all I hear after that are crickets. Most people have no idea how detergent cleans clothes, they just know the commercials tell us it does, and that they have a coupon for $.75 off Tide. We have forgotten that nature does a great job of keeping itself clean, despite us; yet, we think that our dirty socks are too much for it to handle and cling to toxic chemicals in the name of hygiene.

Well, let me tell you that the SmartKlean Laundry Ball does work, and it works very well! Here is a short video that will give you a good overview of the product before I go on.

The SmartKlean Laundry Ball effectively cleans clothes through five different actions.

Raising the Water's pH

The Alkali Balls in the SmartKlean raise the pH of the water in your washing machine, allowing it to neutralize and clean away acidic grime. Also, many pathogens cannot survive heightened alkaline levels.

Restructuring Water Molecules

The SmartKlean restructures water molecules via two separate means.
Magnetic Field - The Magnetic field, generated by two strong magnets included in the laundry ball, breaks apart pre-existing water clusters and allows them to re-configure into a smaller hexagonal structure, resulting in a smaller water cluster that is better able to penetrate fabric for cleaning. Greater dissolved oxygen resulting from this process also helps to dissolve impurities.
Far Infrared - Far Infrared ceramic balls expell a small amount of infrared energy onto the surrounding molecules which also help to restructure the water into smaller clusters as well as kill bacteria.

Removing Chlorine

This element does not help to clean clothes better, but it does help to limit the exposure of your skin to chlorine, as well as extend the life of your clothing by protecting it from the oxidizing effects of chlorine.

Eliminating Germs & Bacteria

The SmartKlean Laundry Ball uses silver nano-particles to eliminate mold and bacteria from your laundry. Silver has been a natural means of effectively eliminating pathogens for millenia.

Agitating Laundry

The enclosure of the SmartKlean Laundry Ball is designed to gently scrub dirt and grime off clothing.

All of these mechanisms come together beautifully to give you clean clothes that smell like NOTHING! They don't smell musty, they don't smell dirty, they don't smell like lavender or lemon. They're just clean. Typical laundry detergents rely on TOXIC additives to create a fragrance that masks the reality. As detergents decompose in your washing machine, they often begin to smell. Very few people know this because these detergents are so heavily scented that every time you do a load of laundry, the odor is covered by fragrance. How do you know your clothes are truly clean when all you can smell is "Alpine Breeze?" SmartKlean has nothing to hide!

We just went through our first SmartKlean Laundry Ball in my family. We had been using it for over a year and it performed remarkably, even effectively cleaning my son's dirty cloth diapers. Now, that is a true test! Then, one day after a wash, our clothes still smelled. We knew the ball was at the end of its estimated life span, so we popped in a new laundry ball and voila, clean clothes. This shows you that it's not just some psychological gimick, it actually cleans your laundry.

I highly suggest against using standard detergents, or even "all natural" ones. It seems that anything bought in a jug, just isn't reliably safe. Plus, they tend to cost a fortune! There are lots of recipes out there for making your own detergent, which I think are great. They just take effort. I prefer to use the SmartKlean because it's so easy... just leave it in the washing machine, put your clothes in, and hit start. That's basically it. And if you do laundry twice a week, it'll last you 3 1/2 years for just $45! Some more advantages of the SmartKlean Laundry Ball are:

Only requires you to use cold water (saves energy & money)
90% of the energy used to wash clothes goes into heating the water
Does not require a rinse cycle because there's no detergent to rinse out (saves water & time!)
Most washing machines use 10-20 gallons of water for each rinse cycle!
Does not flush pollutants into our eco-system
1 SmartKlean Laundry Ball can prevent 6-18 gallons of toxic detergents from reaching our water systems
Contains safe ingredients
Even many "eco-friendly" detergents contain SLS and SLES, which are toxic to humans and lethal to freshwater fish in concentrations of just 7ppm
Detergents are NOT soap and almost always petroleum-based
Completely hypo-allergenic
Great for anyone with allergies, sensitive skin, or skin conditions!
100% recyclable enclosure
The enclosure is also free of BPA and PVC
Only costs about $.12 per load!
Especially cheap when you factor that it replaces detergent, fabric softener, & static sheets!

I've given lots of information, but the bottom line, once again, is that the product works. For especially dirty clothes you may want to run your laundry through a full wash/rinse cycle, but, honestly, in most circumstances, just running a wash cycle without a rinse works just fine. Our towels were noticeably softer after the second time they were washed with the SmartKlean Laundry Ball. My mother had mascara stains on her pillow cases that never came out with regular washes, until the SmartKlean. After one wash with the laundry ball, they were gone! The laundry ball, just like detergent, does not necessarily remove stains. But SmartKlean does have an excellent all-natural stain stick, which we have used to successfully remove oil stains, paint stains, diaper overflow stains, and more! I've said it before and I'll say it again. We shouldn't put anthing on our skin that we wouldn't put in our mouth. We wear detergent all day, with it rubbing against our skin. In fact, about 2% of our clothing weight is residual detergent that was not rinsed off. Not only that, but it pollutes the air in our homes, the soil in which our crops grow, the water in which our sea life lives, and, eventually, becomes the water our families drink.

I think we owe it to ourselves, our family, and our planet to find a solution to the harm detergents are creating. I, personally, think the SmartKlean Laundry Ball is a great solution to a very big problem. The video above really sums up this goal very well!

SmartKlean Laundry Balls and SmartKlean Stain Removers are available locally from Pittsburgh Alkaline Water. Additionally, you may want to check out our Smart Sheep Wool Dryer Balls!