I interview a lot of celebrities about their favorite stuff. Each one tries to convince me (then subsequently you) why they can’t live without each item. I’ve been enthralled by people’s items before — like Tom Colicchio’s favorite meat thermometer, Barbie Ferreira’s sweaters for her sphynx cat, Kaley Cuoco’s extremely giftable blanket, and Brandy’s voice-saving tea crystals — but it takes an especially persuasive celebrity to convince me to actually buy something, because as a Strategist writer, I’ve honestly seen it all. Within two minutes, Piper Perabo managed to talk me into trying her favorite laundry-detergent sheets.
When I asked her about Earth Breeze sheets, Piper blurted out, “Honestly, I think you should write about these.” At first, I thought, Okay, Piper, calm down. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But as I listened to her, I started to believe her. She talked about how she had almost ripped grocery bags that became weighted down by bottles of conventional liquid detergent, and explained how much of a hassle it is to drag that same bottle back out to the laundromat (and yes, Piper Perabo does still go to the laundromat). She mentioned statistics she read about how much waste goes into doing laundry, both water and plastic, and how this tiny box of laundry sheets fixes the problem. “I tear it off and it works just like regular detergent but with so much less waste,” she said. And by the end of the call, I bought them.
I was surprised at how small the package was when it arrived, though the sheets were exactly as Piper described. The cardboard box takes up practically no room in my linen closet, giving me back lots of space for other things, like the extra hand towels I had stored under my bed and my dog’s shampoo. There are 30 sheets per box, and because you only need one half-sheet per standard load, that’s 60 loads per box. (For those doing the mental math, that’s about 26 cents per load — making it significantly less expensive than the Laundress detergent I have been using for the last two years.)
I bought both the unscented and the scented to see which I liked better, and so far, I prefer the scented. It smells more like a natural, springtime breeze than a perfumey department-store scent like that of the Laundress. And unlike liquid detergent, these sheets create no mess, and there’s no need to measure it out or slosh a big bottle around. All you have to do is toss half a sheet in the bottom of the machine, pile clothes on top, and start the cycle. I started off with some inconsequential items, like the towels I use to wash my dog, just in case things went awry. But they didn’t. The towels came out just as clean as they did when I used pricier and less sustainable detergent. Now fully confident in Piper’s detergent sheets, I washed my clothes with them. The sheet completely dissolves in a regular, non-overfilled load, and my clothes were left with a subtle but appealing scent.
And now I’m not sure I can use anything else. So far, I’ve washed towels, sheets, clothes, delicates, whites and colors, and lots more stuff with these detergent sheets. It cleans just as well as, if not better than, more expensive detergents. My favorite Entireworld T-shirt with deodorant marks on it looked good as new after one wash. A sauce stain smack dab in the middle of a light-colored Champion sweatshirt came out on the first try. And a towel covered in mud after wiping down my dog on a rainy day looked fresh. None of these items required stain remover or a second wash, strategies I have had to employ in the past for tough stains. All in all, Piper was completely right about these sheets, so here I am writing about them.
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