This eco-friendly cleaning brand helped us reduce our plastic consumption at home

Homethings offers a new way to think about sprucing up your abode

We purposefully created mess in our home to see how these products fared (iStock/The Independent)

When it comes to household cleaning products, there’s no denying they are particularly damaging to our planet. Not only do they contain toxic chemicals, but the packaging is predominantly single-use – more often than not, it ends up in landfill. But we’ve just found the answer: Homethings. The eco-friendly cleaning brand is the solution to any plastic consumption woes.

The brand took issue with the fact traditional single-use cleaning sprays comprise 90 per cent water, and so developed its “no more shipping water” ethos. Creating ingenious alternatives, including reusable bottles and dissolvable cleaning tabs that weigh virtually nothing, it’s a game-changer.

Following the success of its cleaning sprays, it launched laundry detergent, dishwasher tablets, floor cleaner and washing-up liquid – the ingredients of which have been put through toxicology risk assessments and received a “low risk” result. This all sounded too good to be true, so we had to put it to the test, naturally.

How we tested 

When it came to testing the Homethings bundle, we put each product through its paces, incorporating them into our daily cleaning for nearly a year, as well as purposefully making more mess around the home to see how they would cope during testing.

We paid close attention to how each product performed in comparison with plastic-heavy counterparts, how they smelled, and how much they cost. We scrubbed, dusted, and spruced up our home to give you an honest review, and – spoiler alert – we’re big fans.

Best of all, the brand has given you £15 off the bundle when using the code “Bundle15”. Don’t say we don’t spoil you.

Homethings bundle is massive: Was £50, now £35, Gethomethings.com

The bundle arrived in a large cardboard box (Eva Waite-Taylor)

Contents

As the name suggests, this bundle is truly massive and contains everything you could need to clean your home. When we opened it up, we were met with some seriously strong branding with bright colours and catchphrases, our favourite being “don’t be vanilla, be a refilla”. As you’d expect, the cardboard packaging is all recyclable.

In the box, we received three reusable cleaning spray bottles made from recycled plastic, three cleaning spray tablets (one general purpose, one for your bathroom, and one for cleaning glass), 30 laundry pods, 40 dishwasher tablets, 20 floor cleaner pods, three sponges, a bottle and one washing-up liquid refill.

With no single-use plastic in sight, our first impressions were that Homethings certainly knows a thing or two about eco-friendly cleaning products, and it’s clearly delivered on its mission to help reduce plastic consumption in our homes. We were also pleased with the size of the products, which easily fitted under our sink.

Performance 

Homethings cleaning sprays and pods

The pods arrive individually wrapped in biodegradable sachets (Eva Waite-Taylor)

The sprays were the first thing we unpacked and we were instantly impressed. The branding is strong and the packaging is more exciting than your standard eco-friendly brands, owing to the catchphrases and colours. The refillable bottles are made from recycled plastic and the soluble pods are individually wrapped in biodegradable sachets, which can be placed in your home compost.

After following the simple instructions to a tee – using lukewarm water to dissolve the tablets in one of the bottles provided, and waiting until the tablets had fully dissolved before attaching the nozzle – we were good to go.

When testing the general-purpose spray, we purposefully spilled more things than usual on our hob, to see how it performed. The brand suggests leaving the solution to sit for 10 seconds on stubborn stains before wiping off, which we dutifully did.

The general-purpose spray worked wonders on our dirty hob (Eva Waite-Taylor)

As you can see from the before and after pictures, it did a great job of cleaning stubborn, burned-on stains. But what you can’t tell from the pictures is how nice it smelled. The scent is grapefruit and mandarin – a super refreshing fragrance that we couldn’t get enough of in our kitchen. It’s become our new favourite surface cleaner and we use it to wipe up the table, oven or countertop.

As for the bathroom cleaner, we were impressed at how well it cleaned our white tiles, bath, toilet and basin. There’s no denying it performed as well as its plastic-heavy counterparts. Again, it was fragrant – this time with lavender and tonka bean – and instead of the heavy bleach scent you often get from cleaners, this one made our bathroom smell, and look, super fresh. As you’d expect, we also experienced no smeary marks.

Finally, the glass cleaner did a great job of making our mirrors, shiny surfaces and glass shower screen look super clean. We’ve used this countless times on every reflective surface, but to really test its abilities, we decided to not clean our cooker hood for a number of weeks and then see how well the solution worked.

Cooker hood stains, be gone (Eva Waite-Taylor)

It worked better than other eco-friendly alternatives we’ve tried in the past, which can often leave a lingering smell of vinegar. Instead, this one, true to its peony-inspired name, smelled fresh and floral. We found it removed dirt and dust and left no marks.

All in all, our expectations were surpassed with these spray solutions, each of them performing as well as, if not better than, standard household cleaning products. You can buy refills for each one, and the box has cleverly been designed to fit through your letterbox.

In terms of price, should you opt for the subscription package, it works out at £5 every four weeks (Gethomethings.com), which is more affordable than your average eco single-use plastic cleaner that can set you back around £4. With this, you receive the general purpose, bathroom cleaner and glass cleaner for your reusable bottles. Homethings really has made using eco-friendly cleaning products easy (and, dare we say, enjoyable).

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Homethings floor cleaner

This lavender-smelling floor cleaner is far better for the planet (Eva Waite-Taylor)

Standard liquid floor cleaners contain harmful chemicals that, when disposed of down the drain, pollute streams and rivers, taking a long time to degrade. So, we should try to reach for more-eco-friendly options, where possible. We’ve never used a soluble solution before, and, once again, Homethings’s version worked really well. Included in the bundle are 20 pods, with one pod making up to 5l of floor cleaning solution, which dissolves easily in a bucket of warm water.

We smudged extra dirt into our floors, to test the cleaner’s efficiency, and were impressed with how well the solution worked at clearing up grime. The lavender fragrance was fresh and not too overpowering, too, and the best thing of all is there are no nasties. Looking good and doing good has never smelled better.

Homethings dishwasher tablets 

These are a great alternative to plastic-heavy dishwasher tablets (Eva Waite-Taylor)

As you’d expect from the planet-friendly brand, the dishwasher tablets aren’t individually wrapped, and they don’t come in plastic packaging. This is unlike heavyweights in the cleaning industry, which choose to add unnecessary single-use packaging. So, we were obviously here for the eco-friendly approach, yet again.

We found the tablets worked efficiently on our dirty dishes when plopped into the dishwasher. What’s more, we didn’t notice until reading the small print that these all-in-one tabs are actually made from entirely vegan, plant-based ingredients and contain no phosphate or chlorine at all.

Homethings laundry detergent 

(Eva Waite-Taylor)

Even in a two-person household, we get through a fair bit of laundry, so we were glad when the brand’s laundry detergent pods – of which there are a whopping 30 in the bundle – worked a treat on stubborn stains, including a foundation-marked white T-shirt.

You can opt for fragrance or fragrance-free, the former of which made our clothes smell divine, with a subtle and slightly floral scent.

As with all of the products, you can sign up to the brand’s subscription service to receive these through your door. Depending on your household requirements, you can opt to receive items from every three weeks to every nine. By subscribing, you can save yourself some money, because it’s £1.50 cheaper to do this as opposed to opting for a one-off purchase.

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Homethings washing-up liquid

This powder-to-gel formula made light work of our dirty dishes (Eva Waite-Taylor)

Standard washing-up liquid can contain a concoction of harmful chemicals to the environment, which is why we were excited to try this powder-to-gel formula. The brand’s new and improved sachet contains an active ingredient that is mixed with warm water to make the washing-up liquid.

It sounded simple enough, but we were dubious as to how well the powder would mix into the water. As you can see, the formula is slightly lumpy, but that doesn’t stop it from tackling greasy pots and pans. We were very impressed with how well the washing-up liquid foamed up, and it made light work of stubborn fat on baking trays. Plus, the sweet scent made our kitchen smell fresh.

Homethings sponges 

The sponge arrived practically flat and expanded in size after we put it under a running tap (Eva Waite-Taylor)

Eco-friendly sponges are new to us, and now we feel as though we’ve been missing out. The problem with standard sponges is they’re made from plastic that cannot be recycled, meaning they end up in landfill. But, once again, Homethings has come to the rescue by developing a biodegradable alternative that is made from cellulose and contains no microplastics. It’s a yes from us.

The sponge arrived flat and very small in size, expanding (after we ran it under the tap) into a multi-use scrubber that made light work of stubborn stains on pots, pans and trays. It even worked nicely on our cooker hood and surfaces, as well as in the bathroom, when used in conjunction with the sprays. We found it dried in a very similar way to a standard sponge, and we stored it in our cleaning caddy underneath our sink.

In the bundle, we received three sponges and were impressed with how durable and long-lasting they were. Being made from cellulose, they will start to break down over time, so the brand suggests leaving them to dry out in between uses and washing them occasionally with your tea towels. When they do eventually come to the end of their lives, Homethings suggests cutting them into small pieces and putting them in your compost bin.

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The verdict: Homethings bundle is massive

Forget massive, this bundle is truly excellent. If you’re looking for a solution to single-use plastic cleaning products, this really is it. We’ve since raved about the brand to just about anyone that would listen, and we even sent pictures to multiple group chats when it arrived.

The package contains everything you need to make sure your house stays pristine, and we were impressed with how well each item performed against stubborn dirt and grime. Our stand-out favourite item has to be the reusable cleaning sprays and pods, which are game changers if you’re looking for nice-smelling, eco-friendly products. But all the items do their intended job and then some, so we were undoubtedly impressed with the service.

The best thing of all, though, is the hefty discount of £15 off when using code “Bundle15” at the checkout, to get the bundle for just £35 instead of £50. It really is a no-brainer, and certainly worth trialling for yourself. Do good both by you and the planet.