Interview with Nicki:

Please tell me the birth story of your company, PlanetWise, Inc.

How to enter (please leave a comment for every method of entry)

Mandatory Entry:

Visit Growing Green Bums store and tell me your favorite print by Planetwise, Inc.

For Extra Entries:

Become a fan of Growing Green Bums on Facebook. Leave a comment.

Follow @GrowinGreenBums on Twitter and tweet this Giveaway. Please tweet, Want your diaper stink to go away? Visit @GrowinGreenBums blog & win a Planetwise wet bag package! http://tinyurl.com/34far38 #clothdiapers Leave a comment with your status.

You can tweet once a day, leave a comment with your status for each tweet.

Follow me through Google friend connect. Leave a Comment.

Subscribe to my blog via email through feedburner. Leave a Comment.

Grab my button and post it on your blog. Leave a Comment.

Blog about this giveaway. Post a link in the comment.

Join our newsletter. Leave a Comment

Giveaway ends on September 10, 2010 12pm EST. (Open to US only).

Rockin' Green HQ

At the beginning of the month I took a trip to San Antonio, TX. On my list of things to do was to visit with the creator of Rockin’ Green Cloth Diaper Detergent, Kim Webb. I was fortunate enough to meet and interview her! I even got to tour the Rockin’ Green headquarters. I was so excited to meet Kim after months and months of chatting wither her via Twitter and Facebook, I was able to meet her in real life. We had a great time chatting about detergent and fluff. We first toured the office and I got to meet one of her son’s and an employee! After the tour, we sat down and I asked her a few questions. I would love to share with all my readers the pictures of her office and her answers to my questions! I hope you enjoy!

Q (Marissa): Why did you create Rockin’ Green?

A (Kim): I cloth diapered my oldest, who is 4 now, and was stripping every 2 weeks. In Texas, we have hard water and I even blew up one washing machine. I also converted all my friends to cloth, I was involved in a large playgroup. My friends came to me asking “I can’t get this to work?” and I felt really bad because I couldn’t help them and I couldn’t even get the stink out of my diapers. That was a big draw back to cloth diapering because I couldn’t help them wash. I was so tired of not being able to wash stuff right, my kids would get rashes from everything and I could not find anything that would work at the grocery stores. I then started researching about all the chemicals in laundry detergents and I started tinkering around and basically made my son’s own soap for months and months. I first started selling my detergent along with GAD diapers to see how it would do. And well, it took off and now all I sell is Rockin’ Green.

Q (Marissa): What is a typical day like to work for Rockin’ Green?
side note: extremely kid friendly, you can bring your kids to work! How cool is that?

A (Kim): It is pretty laid back, show up around 9, kids running around, my oldest, Jackson, is always playing…. my youngest, Zachary, thinks he is the foreman and will boss people around. The soap is now made in a larger facility, we could not keep up with demand, so it is made and packaged in a local facility. Then it comes back to us and we ship it out. We go through about 7,000 lbs of detergent a week, the facility is in San Antonio and we just got a bagging machine!

Warehouse

~Long Pause~ Potty Crew!

Q (Marissa): Can you tell me how your company makes environmentally friendly choices?

A (Kim): Packaging is very important, before we were using double bags a plastic bag to protect the soap and then a cloth bag to make it pretty. But it was a lot of waste, people would end up with 20 bags and it was adding up too much. We decided to go with the new bags, they are one piece and recyclable, they take up less to transport compared to a box of detergent. The bags allow for easy shipping. We wanted something to fit in a flat rate envelope which are already made by the post office so therefore reducing waste. Our soap is also biodegradable and you only need to use about 2 tbs. which creates less waste and run off!

Q (Marissa): With the launch of all the new scents and formula, can you tell me how the they differ from the original Rockin’ Green?

A (Kim): In my quest to make Hard Rock, it was about a year project, I did a lot of researching and discovered ways to make Soft Rock and Classic Rock even better. When we did our product testing, it was all people who were previously using Classic or Soft Rock, we found some really cool things along the way to make it superior.

Q (Marissa): What is your best washing tip to other cloth diapering families?

A (Kim): Don’t skimp on the water!!!!! If you have a front loader, replace the word “Rinse” with “Wash”. For example, if you have a top loader, you normally do a rinse, a wash, and a rinse. For a front loader, I would suggest a wash, a wash, and a wash. You are still not going to be using the same amount of water as the top loader folks, but you really need to have the water because that is where the ammonia buildup comes up for the most part. For example, if you are washing 15 pocket diapers in a front loader, each insert will hold about 8 oz sometimes 15 oz, and if you think about it that is a lot of urine in each insert. Let’s say each of the 15 inserts holds about a cup of pee, you put the diapers in and your inserts in the front loader a lot of times the front loader does not put that much water in, so you are washing with a 50/50 mix of water and urine. That will not be rinsed out all the way, so if you do the 3 washes you will be more likely to get the urine flushed out. So, Wash Cold (no detergent), Wash hot (w/ detergent) and Wash Cold (no detergent). The first wash will get most of the urine, so your next wash you will be washing in clean water. This is what I suggest when someone is having stink issues with a front loader, I believe to attack it at the front and not the end.

Wash Routine!

A short bio of Kim:
She and her husband of 9 years have 2 boys, Jackson 4 and Zachary 18 months. They currently reside in San Antonio, TX. Her hubby was a Marine and aircraft mechanic, but now works full time at Rockin’ Green!

Ms. Kim Webb and Son, Zachary

To celebrate the new formula and scents one of our lucky Readers will win a bag of Rockin’ Green Hard Rock!

How to enter (please leave a comment for every method of entry)

Mandatory Entry:

Visit Growing Green Bums store and tell me your favorite item, besides Rockin’ Green!

For Extra entries:

Become a fan of Growing Green Bums on Facebook. Leave a comment.

Become of a fan of Rockin’ Green on Facebook. Leave a comment.

Follow @GrowinGreenBums on twitter and tweet this giveaway. Please tweet, Win Rockin’ Green Hard Rock from @GrowinGreenBums http://bit.ly/aBrxIA #clothdiapers Leave a comment with your status.

You can tweet once a day, leave a comment with your status for each tweet.

Follow me through Google Friend Connect. Leave a comment

Subscribe to my blog via email through feedburner. Leave a comment.

Grab my button and post it on your blog. Leave a comment.

Blog about this giveaway. Post a link in the comment.

Giveaway end on May 31. (Open to US only).

Here is some information about Bird-E Towels™:

Bird-E Towels are reusable towels made by hand in Florida. As the name suggests, these are paper towel replacements. Whatever you might use a paper towel for, you can use these cloths. Dry your hands, wipe up spills, clean the dining room table, dinner napkins, etc, etc. Even better then paper towels, you can actually clean glass and mirrors without leaving linty bits like paper towels and other cloths can do.
What’s the problem with paper towels?? The main problem is that the paper towels that most people use are made from virgin tree pulp. That means that trees are cut down and harvested for something that you are going to use ONE time. And then it gets thrown away…adding to the landfill problem. Oh and to make it even worse for the environment, they bleach the pulp releasing toxic chemicals into our environment. (For something that is used one time?!?) I use unbleached cotton to avoid that aspect of manufacturing. Whenever you get a chance, choose unbleached for a healthier earth. So, cloth is better in so many ways. You can expect years of use from these cloths. And considering that you can toss these small cloths in with laundry that you already have to do…it doesn’t really have much environmental impact once you get them home.

Another great eco-gift we received was from family in Wisconsin! They searched their local markets for some “local” handmade items! One of our favorite gifts was from Dragonfly Soaps out of Spooner, WI! We received a number of different soaps, one of our favorites is the Gardener’s Friend Soap: Lemon juice, sand and pumice make this bar an excellent cleanser for people who work with their hands (only for use on hands). We also received some dog shampoo, which I am excited to give that a try for our dog!

I couldn’t find information on them online, but I do have a contact address! I do have some information on homemade hand milled soaps! This information was included in the gift: “Most of the soaps and shampoos we buy in stores are not soap, but detergents made from petroleum distillates. Soaps are made with animal and/or vegetable fats, lye and water in a process known as saponification. We use beef tallow, olive oil, cocoa butter, ly and water as main ingredients for our basic soap. Hand milled soaps are cured basic soap which has been grated, remelted with a variety of skin friendly additives and molded. Though they take longer to make, they are harder and last longer. This process also protects the additives as the soap is no longer caustic when milled.”

I hope everyone of you had a wonderful, peaceful Christmas! Thank so much for your support in 2009 and looking forward to the opportunities 2010 holds!