the honest company

happy monday people!

we had a great weekend and i'm sad to be at work today, but at least vacation is only in 3 short weeks! we went to a drive-in movie and had dinner at one of my favorite restaurants (chima, a brazilian steakhouse) this weekend and it was wonderful! we also got to see my best friend courtney who is in town for work which was icing on the cake!

on to today's topic...

a few months ago i signed up for monthly essentials bundles with the honest company. i'd heard a little about the company before that because i read celebrity news like a crazy person and jessica alba is one of the founders.

i started looking into it because i'm trying to switch things in our house to natural alternatives as much as possible (within reason) and the honest company offers a ton of personal care and cleaning products that you can "bundle" each month and pay a monthly fee. it's great because they warn you via email when your bundle is about to be assembled so you have a chance to mix and match which 5 products you want to receive that month. that way you don't end up with 8 bottles of shampoo that you don't need.

i decided to give it a try and i have to say i love it! i think it's actually a very good deal financially, and i really like the products themselves a lot. here's a rundown of the some of the ones i've tried:

bug spray: smells way better than normal bug spray and isn't greasy or sticky at all!

dish soap: i really like this product but it doesn't foam up as much as regular dish soap due to lower levels of chemical surfactants. it is a little hard to get used to since we tend to associate bubbles with cleanliness, but we're getting there!

dish towels: made from organic cotton, love the blue and white!

dryer sheets: i've only used these once or twice so i'm still forming my opinion...but they seem to work well! i dont typically use dryer sheets at all, which is another reason why i like the monthly bundle. it makes me choose things i normally wouldn't buy!

fruit & veggie wash: i keep this on my kitchen sink beside the dish soap to wash fruits and veggies. since we get most of our produce delivered now directly from farms (see that post here), it tends to be dirtier than grocery store varieties. this wash has been really helpful for an extra layer of clean!

hand soap: fairly standard, but i like it

laundry pods: my favorite product so far. i really like laundry pods because i feel like liquid detergents always make a mess and can stain clothes if they don't distribute well enough. laundry pods in the store are so expensive though! i was so happy to see honest offered these. they're smaller and clearly simpler than the crazy-colored ones you can find elsewhere, but they work just as well. very happy with these!

lip balm: i've only tried the sweet orange vanilla one and i love it! it smells and tastes great

shampoo + body wash: this combination shampoo & body wash is all i've been using for the past few months. like the dish soap, it doesn't lather up as much as my other shampoos, but i'm getting used to it! the smell is great and i like that i only need one bottle instead of 2 in the shower.

multi-surface cleaner: this stuff is really handy. it can clean pretty much any surface so i'm always picking it up to clean up random spills. i also use it to clean the counters in my kitchen and bathroom on a weekly basis. i have to say, sometimes i miss the strong lemony smell of cleaners like lysol but i think in the end it's better for my countertops (and probably my lungs) to use this instead!