Hi, arrived on the 26th in calgary, landlady left some tide washing powder for us to use but i arent sure if its that making my eldest rashy, i used ariel in the uk can you buy that here? i have seen persil or can anyone recommend something similar to ariel?
(apologies in advance for some strange questions!)

There is a shop on the Deerfoot Meadows industrial estate (think Ikea), in the corner by Best Buy that may be able to provide you with what you need. It's called the Laundry Store. They understand the "English issue" with Canadian laundry products.


HTH

Hi, thanks for that, thats where i saw the persil but they had no ariel.

There are lots and lots of green laundry products in Canadian supermarkets - if your children are getting rashes to the chemical stuff you should try these.

I don't know calgary area at all, but here in Montréal there is a brand called "La Parisenne" which is ok and can be found in Walmart, IGA/Sobey's, Loblaws etc; and we have a specialist retailer called Lemieux, but I think they've not reached out of Québec yet.

If you have a front loader, look out for the letters HE on the bottle. They stand for High Efficiency.

Definitely would try the green route for your health.

That statement does not apply to Calgary. Yes, there are a few green laundry products if you look for them, but there are not lots and lots of them.

I left Calgary in the middle of September, so cannot pop down to my local supermarket to check. But I think the mainstream supermarkets would carry maybe one green detergent.

Julie, a good option for you, if you want to go the green route, is to check out Planet Oganic at the intersection of Southland Drive and Elbow Drive in the southwest quadrant. They carry a range of green laundry products.

For those of you who live in the northwest quadrant, Google tells me there is a branch of Planet Organic at the intersection of Shaganappi Drive and Varsity Drive NW.

For people in Calgary, another good source of green laundry products is Community Natural Foods. There is a branch in the Beltline district, adjacent to downtown, and another across the street from Chinook Train Station.

Although I've never been there myself, I've seen forum members mentioning Amaranth Whole Foods Market in Arbour Lake in the northwest.

I'm still learning my way around Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. It happens that the most conveniently located supermarket for me is Thrifty's. They carry several green home cleaning products and green personal hygiene products (soap, shampoo, etc.).
x

I find it amazing how different Canada can be from one city to another....

Don't President's Choice do environmentally friendly cleaning stuff? We have used various liquids, Tide and Sunlight. None have caused an excema flare up. I think the liquids leave less residue on clothes anyway so may be a better choice generally. I haven't used them for years as they are full of fillers and gunk that glogs up drains and clothes. So try the liquid option. Sunlight do a non perfumed, sensitive skin variety thats fine.

All very well, but the so-called "green" products do not clean like Ariel does and can still produce nasty rashes on sensitive skins. One of my sons reacts to every "green" product I have ever tried. Nothing here cleans as well as Ariel. Best of the worst is Tide HE with bleach. Not colour friendly, despite what the bottle says and makes you itch in places you shouldn't, when they over-do the perfume in a given batch.

Not knowing any better we've always used Tide Free powder it works for us, most others don't.

So I wonder have you tried it in any of it's other forms as the Tide Free powder appears to be disappearing from store shelves.

Mrs_P is most reluctant to try anything else but I'm thinking we'll have to go through the process once again of searching out a product that as you put it doesn't "make us itch in places you're not supposed to".

I am prone to allergic reactions from washing powder and the best I have found so far over here is sunlight sensitive (in a white bottle). If I go back to the UK then I stock up on fairly tablets as you can scatter loads of them in your suitcase!

Sunlight Sensitive, yeah, thats the one we used.

They all fade your clothes tho.

I use an eco-friendly liquid detergent called Ecos that I buy from Costco - it is the only one I have found that doesn't seem to irritate the youngest one's eczema.

I will look out for that, is it ok for top loaders?? and do they always have it in?

They always have it at the one in the NW of Calgary.... and I use a top loader with it - works fine.

Good, thanks. I'll check out the Pbro ON one next time I am in there. I am always surprised when I see that you are in Calgary, for some reason I think you are in Nova Scotia.