Category: Spotted on Shelves

Eco-friendly cleaner newcomer, Replenish, recently came out with their first product that provides buyers with just an empty spray bottle and a pod that contains a concentrated cleaner. The only part Replenish doesn’t provide is the water to turn that empty bottle into a full one.

It’s up to buyers to provide the water. Hopefully, not bottled water, because that would defeat the purpose. Also, hopefully, not Evian water, because that would be pretentious.

The purpose of this setup is to encourage buyers to reuse the spray bottle, which means less plastic in their recycle bins and more room for Bud Light bottles and failed bong making attempts in glass blowing class.

Each pod of concentrated cleaner is good for four full bottles. To make a full bottle, screw the pod to the empty spray bottle, turn everything upside down and squeeze the pod to get the concentrate into the reservoir in the empty spray bottle. Then add water and mix. The concentrate is 98 percent plant-based, biodegradable, non-toxic and pH neutral.

Replenish comes in three varieties: Sun Lemon, Green Tea and Fresh Lavender. A reusable bottle with a pod of concentrated cleaner costs $7.99. A replacement pod will set you back $3.99.

Replenish Website

Kimberly-Clark introduced this week Scott Naturals Tube-Free, a toilet paper roll without the inner cardboard roll.

While it’s great for the environment, if the TP technology is successful and other companies follow suit, it could equate to a drop in the number of times parents have to put on a fake smile and pretend to be proud of their child when they bring home a crappy craft project they made in school using toilet paper rolls, construction paper and glue.

The tubeless rolls are made using a “special winding process.” While the roll’s hole won’t be perfectly round, it will fit on any toilet paper spindle. But that’s just a small price to pay so that you’ll have fewer toilet paper animals, toilet paper flowers and toilet paper rockets to throw away when you have to make room for your child’s elbow macaroni art.

The Scott Naturals Tube-Free toilet paper is currently available at Walmart and Sam’s Club stores throughout the northeastern U.S.

Update: Read a Silk Soymilk Mint Chocolate review here

Silk, maker of soy products that are dairy-free, lactose-free, cholesterol-free and silk-free, is releasing a new holiday soy milk flavor this season alongside their current holiday flavors: Pumpkin Spice and Nog. The new Silk Mint Chocolate has the potential to be the best of three since I believe Silk knows how to make a mean chocolate soy milk.

While it sounds good, I’m not sure what holiday Silk Chocolate Mint represents. It’s easy to determine which holidays Silk’s two other flavors are for. Pumpkin Spice is for Halloween/Thanksgiving and Nog is for Christmas. Mint Chocolate could be a Christmas flavor, or it could honor National Chocolate Mint Day on February 19th.

A one cup serving contains 90 calories, 15 calories from fat, 1.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 1 gram of polyunsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 80 milligrams of sodium, 300 milligrams of potassium, 15 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 14 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein, and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.

Silk Mint Chocolate will be available for a limited time, hopefully until February 19th, and come in quart and half gallon sizes.

A couple of years ago, V8 created their V-Fusion line that combined vegetable juice with fruit juices to help people consume more vegetables and fruits and to help expand the product line beyond a salted vegetable juice, which I usually see used as a replacement for tomato juice in a Bloody Mary.

It seems combining fruit and vegetable juices wasn’t enough for V8, because they decided to add a third partner — green tea. An 8-ounce serving of the new V8 V-Fusion + Tea provides provides 1/4 cup of vegetables, 1/4 cup of fruits and the antioxidant power of green tea. Although I’m not sure how much antioxidant power the green tea provides.

V8 V-Fusion + Tea comes in three flavors: Raspberry Green Tea, Pineapple Mango Green Tea and Pomegranate Green Tea. All three come in 46-ounce bottles and contain 50 calories, 0 grams of fat, 60 milligrams of sodium, 13 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 10 grams of sugar, and 100% vitamin C per 8 ounce serving.

Hey! Have you been waiting for a new Vitaminwater flavor with a name that looks like it was created by someone whose ability to spell is just a tad higher than a bird pecking at a keyboard? Well your wait is almost over because you’ll soon get to enjoy Vitaminwater Stur-D.

The blue-colored Stur-D will be blue agave, passion fruit and citrus flavored and it will be the first Vitaminwater flavor to include fruit juice, although it will be made with only 5 percent juice.

The latest flavor gets its name because each serving contains 10 percent of the daily value for vitamin D and calcium, which help support strong bones, and it also has 120 percent of the daily value for vitamin C, which helps the body make collagen, which is needed to support joints. It also contains 40 percent of the daily value of vitamins B3, B5, B6 and B12, which helps the Nutrition Facts label on it look a little longer.

Vitaminwater Stur-D will retail for $1.49 and be available in December.