people against dirty

march clean-o-gram

home sweet home. 

we would love to invite all of you over to our home for a cuppa, but we don’t have nearly enough chairs. so we set up a cozy home away from home at the Ideal Home Show in London, complete with bathtub, aroma bar, and a lot of squeaky green method products (including some of our coveted “plastic bag rehab” bags).

if you’re in the Earls Court area, please stop by and take a load off (or even a bath). you can find our shiny happy faces at stand 2M1 through the 6th of April. our bottles are popping up all over the show, from the full size eco home and the stylish dream house to the Madame Tussauds celebrity bathrooms of both Leonardo DiCaprio and Simon Cowell (who knew they had that much in common).

we have a pair of show tickets for the first five people to email us what makes their home ideal at talkclean@methodproducts.co.uk.

the full monty. 

you may have spotted these new stylish moisturizing hand washes in your neighborhood Boots recently. their dirty little secret is that they like to strip tease. their labels are completely removable, leaving bare naked bottles on your sink (you can leave the pump on). but don’t dismiss them as shallow. Almond Flower, White Tea, and Olive Leaf strut their stuff with moisturizing vitamin E and jojoba.

on the move. 

in the midst of spring cleaning, we've doubled the number of stores where you can find method. in particular, we are excited that Waitrose recently took in method to each and every store. we’ve been in John Lewis and Ocado for a while now, so it’s nice to get to know the rest of the John Lewis Partnership family.

many of you noticed changes with method at Tesco. Tesco has been testing out the whole method range for the last year (kind of like Cleaning Idol). we’ve been waiting anxiously to hear the results of our singing routines (given that Simon Cowell is a fan). the good news is that Tesco chose the six best performers to take to many more stores. the sad news is that they voted several products out entirely, including some of our favorites. so, if you’re looking for your favorite items no longer at Tesco, click here to find the closest store that carries method.

or, if you'd like to appeal the judges' decision, perhaps email Sir Terry Leahy at Tesco directly and let him know that you miss your favorite method products and would like more eco-chic products at Tesco. people against dirty unite.

the full monty

Your hands say a lot about you.  As the wintery weather continues making it feel more like Christmas than Easter week, we think that you (like us), will love the latest addition to our range.  Our moisturizing hand wash has added vitamin E, jojoba and will soften things up as well as clean.  So no more talking dirty (at least not with your hands).  It comes in 3 variants - Olive Leaf, White Tea, and Almond Flower.  Beautifully packaged but with a penchant for stripping off.  The recycled card packaging slips off easily to reveal a pure designer body to make any bathroom proud.

So go and see them in the flesh.  Pop into your local Boots.  You'll find them next to their older sisters, the iconic gel hand wah and giddy foam hand washes.

the show has begun

we really wanted to meet more of you - the friends we haven't met yet - (you know who you are) from around the UK and settled on moving into the Ideal Home Show. the show runs for a full 24 days from 14th of March to 6th of April - so please come and see us at stand 2M1.

with the help of the entire method team here and in San Francisco we have created a little home away from home - with everything from a coffee table and a bath tub (filled with Tub+tile of course) to our very own dog - Squeaky.

at the show we have all the time in the world to chat - at our aroma bar you can tantalise your senses and win a full Detox your home kit (one up for grabs each day) just by letting us know your favourite method scent.

we are letting our visitors have the first sneak preview of the book that our founders Adam & Eric have written - Squeaky Green - it is a room by room guide to a Happy Healthy home. so come, have a seat and a flick-through.

we have really enjoyed getting to know all the people that make the Ideal Home Show spectacular from Phil and Maxine in the marketing and press offices to the lovely ladies showing people around the beautiful dream and eco homes. so we have lent our products out to several exhibits to lend a little colour.

as you go around the show see how many places you can find our little colourful bottles.

a little hint in the pictures here.

greener cleaner

We think clean means not leaving a dirty mess, not just at home but all around us. so we like it when you take a little step to be green or even helping others to be a bit greener. And there are lots of resources popping up trying to make us all a little greener cleaner. The nice people working on one of those asked us to give some of our real Bright green cleaners to their readers. So we have. Click here to enter the competition to win a little set of Bathroom Flushable Wipes and a Tub+tile spray. And hey presto; your bathroom will smell of Eucalyptus mint. (well, you have to use it first of course!)

january clean-o-gram

A bit belated, but we’d like to wish you a happy new year. Chuffed is our new favorite British word, as you’ll see by some of our news.

In this month’s clean-o-gram, we have the requisite bit of New Year’s resolutions and detoxing, a dirty little secret, a fancy shmancy award, and the newest home for method.

detoxapalooza

‘Tis the season to make resolutions. Ours is to keep the office a bit tidier and eat lunch away from our desks more. Oh, and we’re moving all of our bottles to 100% recycled plastic.

Detoxing is a pretty popular resolution. So, while you’re out detoxing everything from your liver to your skin, give a little thought to home sweet home. It could use a good old detox as well. In fact, if your walls could talk, you'd probably want to wash their mouths out with soap (but good, clean, non-toxic soap like method we hope).

Unlike some of the dodgy detox treatments out there, detoxing your home doesn’t have to be a sacrifice. It can even, dare we suggest it, smell like Eucalyptus Mint or Ylang Ylang and come in shiny, happy bottles like these. Our cheeky range of home detox remedies may be found online and (we’re chuffed to say) in more and more shops across the UK.

dirty little secret of the month

We like to share dirty little secrets each month. We want everyone to rethink what makes a healthy home. We’re rabble-rousers that way.

This month’s secret relates to why it’s a good idea to detox your home. The air inside your home is more polluted that the air outside. It’s true. It’s 2-5 times more polluted than what’s outside. Plus, you’ve got a bunch of pesticides soaking in all that bad air. That’s a potentially dangerous mix. You country dwellers aren’t off the hook – this applies to you, too. Here’s the full story.

fancy shmancy award

It’s hard to tell from this photo, but we’re all blushing (all eight of us). The nice people at the Grocer just named method Household Launch of the Year in the UK, and entered us as a finalist for overall launch of the year. We are quite chuffed. We were by far the smallest brand at the event (and certainly the only one with 100% of the UK team there). We'd like to thank the Academy, but of course we owe it to all of you. We're just sad we couldn’t have fit all of you in the room and there wouldn't have been enough canapés to go around.

dish, dish, got my wish

You might remember that just before Christmas, we gave away some limited-edition washing-up liquid bottles signed by the whole team in return for your quirkiest Christmas tradition. Here are a few of our favorites.

"When the children were growing up instead of putting out cookies and milk for Santa … they would leave him salami, crackers and beer and carrots for the reindeer”

"My mum bought a Christmas decoration that consisted of a straw circle with strings coming of it and ducks/geese suspended on them … every year that this decoration comes out we sing the Dambusters title music"

newest home of method

We were chuffed (as, you can see, was Louise’s daughter Frida) that Whole Foods recently introduced a nice full range of method to its flagship London store, as well as the smaller Fresh & Wild shops. We like Whole Foods (particularly their cheese room) and have been in a number of their US stores for a while now, so are glad to cross the pond with them.

We hope this New Year’s clean-o-gram left you feeling chuffed and squeaky clean. We would love your comments.

dirty little secret: indoor air quality

The air inside your home is more polluted than the air outside.

It’s true. It’s 2-5 times more polluted than what’s outside. Plus, you’ve got a bunch of pesticides soaking in all that bad air. That’s a potentially dangerous mix. You country dwellers aren’t off the hook – this applies to you, too.

How did this happen? A brief history lesson:

We used to live in drafty homes where the air could more freely circulate, keeping homes breezier and healthier. But after World War II, we started sealing our homes up nice and airtight – air conditioning had become more popular and energy efficiency became an issue (it’s the whole “you can’t run the air with the windows open” thing).

At the same time, a whole bunch of chemicals came onto the market – chemicals that were used to make many products for our homes and our bodies.

Some of these chemicals are used in many common cleaning products and are so toxic you can't even put it in your garbage or down the toilet.  You have to dispose of them the way you dispose of paint and used motor oil.

Plastics were the new hot thing and soon they were everywhere. There was a boom in manufacturing and a boom in buying. Hey, the war was over, people felt optimistic, and they had money to spend again. And spend they did. Unfortunately all the stuff they bought led to overly cluttered homes, a trend that holds true to this day.

We’re sealed up – spending 90% of our time indoors – and practically suffocating under stuff. Home sweet home is certainly not the breezy, healthy place it used to be. Instead it’s a vacuum-sealed hotbed of toxins, causing all sorts of health issues. Asthma rates, for example, have soared – more than 20 million people are affected. The same goes for allergies, chemical sensitivities, and even cancer rates. As we sealed up, we became unhealthy.

The line where your home ends and you begin is more blurry than ever. We believe a home is more than just a box: it’s sort of a second skin. It could be a third skin if you’re counting clothes. So why would you clean your tub with harsh chemicals and then soak in it?

The Solution:

Call us lazy, but we’re all about having the most impact with the least amount of effort. Start by getting those toxic cleaning products out of your home. It’s a small change that can make a big difference.

But, while you may think it’s green to throw away all our toxic cleaning supplies into the trash and start fresh, think first about how you dispose of them. By tossing them into the trash, you’re actually improperly disposing of household hazardous waste, which could end up leaking into our waterways. Instead, use up what you have and buy green the next time you stock up on cleaning supplies.  Or contact your council to learn how to best dispose of household hazardous waste in your area.

launch of the year

Boy, were we chuffed to be named "Launch of the Year" by the Grocer for the household category.  So, we literally trooped out the entire UK team (all 8 of us) to central London to cage a few free drinks and samosas.  And, given that the venue was Scottish and we're close to Burns Day, a little Haggis, which we discovered was "a Scottish dish consisting of a mixture of the minced heart, lungs, and liver of a sheep or calf boiled in the stomach of the slaughtered animal".  Yum.

We got to shmooze with the movers and shakers of every aisle of the supermarket, including the king of cakes and the queen of rice (reminds us of the sausage king of Chicago from Ferris Bueller's Day Off).

The editor of the Grocer sought us out to say that method handwash was in the toilets at the venue.  And we replied, we know, we snuck in a bunch and put them there.  We need every bit of free marketing we can find.

To that aim, we took to the streets to paint the town method, spreading method love with free samples all over London.  Here is Andy proving his supply chain prowess a restaurant with a sink next to the hostess stand.

And, here we are trying to reach one advocate at a time.

 

big shoes to fill

When Philthy Phil (our illustrious "brain of the supply chain") left the UK recently to open the method Hong Kong office, he left some big shoes to fill.  Literally.  He left behind his filthy trainers as a welcome present for Andy who will be carrying the cleaning torch where Phil left off. 

Welcome to Andy as our newest person against dirty and our new chief "mover and maker".  His grin in this photo (even while holding those shoes -- impressive) comes from his New Year's when he proposed at the top of the Empire State Building (good thing he wasn't wearing these shoes at the time).

philthy manor

Our dear Philthy Phil who was part of the launch team of method in the UK is off to Hong Kong to help us with sustainable sourcing.  We now make the majority of our UK products in the UK, but Phil will help us with materials like bamboo, one of the most renewable substances on the planet.  In his free time (when not wearing silly hats like the one in this picture), he's going to help fight dirty down under by bringing method to Australia.

But, we will sure miss him.  And we wouldn't be here without him.  So, we officially named our offices here "Philthy Manor" in his honor.

Quirky Christmas

We are constantly impressed with you, our friends here in Britain. We asked you to get us in the Christmas cheer with your quirky Christmas traditions; and within a few hours the first were in our talkclean inbox.
Here are some of our favourites.

"...my partner and I spend Christmas Day on our own at home and then go up to see my family on Boxing Day: once there we spend the afternoon opening loads and loads of stocking fillers, which we all buy for each other during the year - it lasts for hours!

"I am a grownup and have a collection of little stuffed Christmas animals that I lay out each holiday season – my family laughs at me."

"When I was around  5 years old on Christmas Eve, my grandfather used to let me hang a very special glass bell on the tree - make a wish and then off to bed. He had the bell when he was a child and now I have it. I always hang it on the tree - ring it and make a wish on Christmas Eve. Oh - by the way I'm 72 years old. Not too old to wish though!"
 
"Christmas is the time for mountains of mince pies......but i always have it with blue cheese (stilton preferably). A mince pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze"

"When the children were growing up instead of putting out cookies and milk for Santa (since we knew everyone did that) they would leave him salami, crackers and beer and carrots for the reindeer "

"My mum bought a Christmas decoration that consisted of a straw circle with strings coming of it and ducks/geese suspended on them (difficult to describe - you had to be there!) Every year that this decoration comes out we sing the Dambusters title music - used to really really annoy my mum"

All of you should be receiving a limited edition Dish Wash signed by all of us here in the UK office within a few days, the Royal Mail willing!

Happy scrubbing!