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Welcome to Bluedot Living’s BuyBetter Marketplace, a biweekly newsletter that navigates the confusing world of stuff.
If your friend sent you this, you can sign up for yourself here to receive the BuyBetter newsletter every other Monday. Do you know someone else who would enjoy it? Forward to a friend.
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Bluedot Living’s BuyBetter Marketplace newsletter includes affiliate links, including to Amazon. If you purchase a product through one of our links, we may earn a commission. These commissions help us fund the great journalism that you see on Bluedot. Thank you for supporting us!
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Dear Readers,
One year ago, I sent out the first-ever BuyBetter newsletter on spring cleaning. Since then, I’ve found new favorite organic cotton undies, switched detergent, and finally got an induction stove. Thanks to the newsletter, many of you have purchased compostable phone cases, shampoo bars, and indoor composters ($50 off with code BLUEDOT). Our readership has grown substantially, and I’m grateful to original and newer readers alike. In this anniversary edition, you’ll find those first cleaning faves and then some, as well as a little BuyBetter FAQ. As some of you might recall, I
introduced myself to you with an anecdote about someone I admire, even if he never was known for his judicious use of resources … Liberace. You’ll have to keep reading for more.
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You can clean, or you can clean like Mrs. Doubtfire — with a purpose.
Image courtesy United Archives GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo
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Every spring, my husband designates a weekend for deep-cleaning and decluttering our house. I never look forward to this. He will inevitably try to convince me to get rid of the life-sized paperboard cutout of Liberace that lives in our hall closet, and I will declare no — Liberace stays! We will scrub, sweep, dust, and polish. And while I’m not one of those people who enjoys cleaning, I find the seasonal ritual a little less onerous every spring, probably because our cleaning process itself has become greener with each passing year.
Conventional cleaning products contain lots of nasty ingredients like petroleum, volatile organic compounds, and chemicals that can dramatically harm indoor air quality. Slowly but surely, we’ve been getting rid of them. In recent years, we’ve mostly ditched some chemical solvents in favor of things like plain old baking soda and white vinegar (both on Amazon), or this 100-year-old scouring product that makes everything sparkle (also on Amazon).
Have we had some false starts? Sure. But I can tell you with great confidence that there are great “clean” cleaning products out there — ones that really do get the job done! Click through the list below to find a few items that Bluedotters use to keep our own little corners of the world clean. You can also visit the Buy Better Marketplace for more items of all kinds.
Have I missed your favorite item? Is there something you’d like me to research for you? Please let me know. Email marketplace@bluedotliving.com. And thanks again for a great year.
– Elizabeth Weinstein, Marketplace Editor
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Our Fave Paper Towels
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Sometimes I really do want paper towels to pat down a chicken or clean up a hairball. Who Gives A Crap makes great toilet paper and paper towels and donates 50% of profits to charity. Read our review.
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Clean Floors
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Our advice columnist, Dear Dot, uses this VOC-free, Greenguard Gold Certified Rubio Monocoat Soap to clean her fabulous, sustainably sourced Brazilian walnut floors. Read our review.
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Have you seen our previous BuyBetter newsletters?
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If not, visit our site for round-ups of items for better sleep, gifts for hosts, pantry staples, cookware and appliances, cold-weather clothes, clean beauty, laundry and food storage solutions, back-to-school favorites, picks for pups, baby showers, the beach, and summer clothes, products for picnicking and renovating, kitchen favorites, white sneakers we love, and household cleaning products.
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FOLLOW US
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Want to get in touch? I’d love to hear from you. Tell me about your favorite sustainable products, topics you’d like to see covered, or anything else that’s on your mind — email marketplace@bluedotliving.com.
I’ll see you again in two weeks.
– Elizabeth
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Elizabeth Weinstein, Bluedot’s Marketplace Editor, lives in Manhattan with her husband; her papillon, Finley; and her cats, SanDeE* and Modell. When she’s not asking the folks at Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom to try on all of their sustainable sneakers in a size 9½, she can be found at the Union Square Greenmarket or gardening on her rooftop terrace.
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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES
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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES
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The BuyBetter Marketplace and bluedotliving.com are published by Bluedot, Inc.
Find more simple, smart, sustainable stories at bluedotliving.com, our Martha's Vineyard website, our Brooklyn website, our San Diego website, our Santa Barbara website, our Boston website, our Toronto website, and our Los Angeles website. Subscribe to this newsletter here.
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