People with chemical sensitivities, skin allergies -- and those who just plain hate the smell of all that stuff with unpronounceable names found in mass-produced laundry detergents -- will fall in love with
Moon Works laundry soap. The unscented version is made of baking soda, borax, castile soap, and if you prefer a scent, try the lavender or balsam fir with essential oils, which won't cling to your clothes or skin.
Gail Robinson and partner Jay Gierkey have been making the products since 2000 in Lake Leelanau (their business P.O. Box is in nearby Suttons Bay). "Mostly we stumbled on this recipe," says Robinson. The fact that the recipe didn't produce suds – which can be harmful to the environment – was a plus. Robinson did a test wash, and no suds appeared, just dirty water, so she knew it worked, and the business has flourished ever since.
"It's been fun," says Robinson, who creates her Earth-friendly powder in a giant 52-gallon polyethylene cement mixer.
Starting with hand-colored labels from her copy machine pasted on small brown paper bags, Moon Works' first customers were the local
Hansen Foods, the
Covered Wagon Farm Market and
Oryana Natural Foods in Traverse City. Once Moon Works paid for a digitized universal product code (UPC) barcode, it went onto shelves of larger supermarkets in the area, like
Tom's,
Oleson's and others.
Now Moon Works laundry soap sells in 40 retail outlets around the country, and two different companies on the East and West Coasts are putting their private labels on the product.
Writer: Patty LaNoue Stearns
Source: Gail Robinson
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