So as I told you Wednesday, Emily and I and some other fab bloggers had a great night out with Tim Gunn thanks to the fabric care brands at P&G – Tide, Downy, and Bounce. The next day (sans Emily, who felt the need to go to WORK – LAME!!!!!) we headed to one of P&G’s technical centers in Cincinnati for Fabric Care University to learn all about the science that goes into making these great products. And Tim Gunn tooootallly sat with OUR table of cool OHIO girls at breakfast and we toootalllly gossiped about Project Runway and it was AWESOME!!! But then he had to leave. 🙁 Fortunately, the rest of the day did NOT disappoint!
Because we were in a super top-secret environment , we weren’t allowed to take pictures. SO you will have to settle for my brilliant word-pictures and this picture of me taken tonight after I got home from Target where I went specifically to purchase a bottle of Tide Coldwater Free HE!
You’re welcome. Yes, that’s right, I drank the kool-aid. I am really excited about saving energy by using Tide Coldwater and washing my stuff in cold rather than warm water. Because did you know that 80% of the energy used in doing laundry comes from heating the water?? ‘Tis TRUE! I’ve been wanting to make the leap to cold water washing for awhile, but I was too skeeered. However, the good scientists at P&G convinced me that Tide Coldwater works! So the leap has been made!
One thing about the good scientists at P&G – they are all REALLY EXCITED about inventing better ways to get our clothes clean. My favorite researcher was named Elaine. She led several of the presentations and a tour of one of their labs that contained about 15 bazillion washing machines where they duplicate water quality from all over the world and figure out how to make the best detergents to get everyone’s clothes clean. Elaine was SO enthusiastic and excited about her job. It was awesome! She was totally geeked out about fabric care innovation in a way that made us all geeked out too! I LOVED her. I want her to come over and talk laundry with me over coffee.
One of the many eye-opening things that Elaine told us is that our bodies make 50 grams of soil a day. That’s a handful of dirt coming off of ourselves A DAY!!!!!!! I think I speak for everyone in the Fabric Care University when I saw “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWW!” No wonder our clothes are so dirty!! And I won’t even go into the diagram they showed us that specified where all that body soil comes from. ICK. Just trust me, we are all dirty, dirty, dirty people. And we get our clothes dirty!! And we need good fabric care!!
The other super-eye-opening thing I learned at Fabric Care University was all about how the different types of washers work. I just got my new high-efficiency washer from Frigidaire (which I’ll be posting about next week, ohmygoodnessitissoooawesome) last week, so I was ALL EARS to learn about how HE’s work. It was really cool to learn (I’ll share more of what I learned next week) and also to hear about how P&G works with washing machine manufacturer’s to make their detergents more effective.
As I mentioned, some of what we discussed was super-top-secret. But I CAN tell you that Tide and Downy have some really exciting innovations coming up really soon. They got ME excited about them and I know you’ll think they are really cool too.
Fabric Care University was amazing and really reinforced my Tide brand-loyalty. I am excited to take the cold water plunge with Tide Coldwater and my new HE washer from Frigidaire and see how much water and energy I can save while still getting my laundry clean clean clean. I will let you know how it goes!
Thanks so much to the great folks at P&G Fabric Care for putting on an amazing event and the hard-working team at DeVries PR who took such good care to make sure everything went smoothly. I was so privilged to be a part of this event!
Only 50 grams of soil a day, sound too low to me.
The boy’s room generates that an hour!
I’im a tide fan btw…big time…anyting else makes me itch!
UP
Great recap, Jenny!! I just feel like I should say, “You’re a dirty, dirty girl.” And, truly..that chart with all of the human deposits of dirt. Gross. The flatulence still gets me (not as in “I am flatulent” or anything like that but ya know).
And, you will LOVE the Coldwater. It removes the funk fo realz.
SRSLY, DIRTY GIRL.
I posted my part one today – and will continue when I am finally home (I’m on my third trip of the week. So, BLEH!) and able to create coherent thoughts. I’m definitely gonna check out the tide with bleach alternative. And the coldwater tide.
And I kind of want to go to the store and sniff them all. I’m a scent girl, after all.
so does the tide coldwater work if you DONT have a really cool washer/dryer unit such as yourself??
I’ve been washing almost exclusively in cold water for years…so does that mean I’m a trend setter or just too lazy to sort? I’ll never tell 🙂
Back to part 1 – I loved that display of vintage products. Bet Katie did,too.