The Honest Company Essentials Sample Pack.

The Honest Company (honest.com) produces 'non toxic', sustainable, green products for the home and family. Their main focus is on cleaning products and basic toiletries that can be used by the whole family but they also produce nappies (diapers) and a small range of vitamins and supplements. (There is also a sister company that produces make up and skincare HonestBeauty.com). The company and their products appear to be aimed at young families.

The products can be found in many stores or can be ordered direct from The Honest Company. If you order on line you can choose to make a one off order or enroll in a subscription program where they ship you five products of your choice each month for $35.00.

Free packages of trial sized products are available to would be new customers. There are various trial packs to choose from and you pay just $5.95 for shipping, the products themselves are free. Once you have received the trial pack if you are not interested in joining their subscription program you need to call them so that they can deactivate your account to avoid future shipments and charges. (When I called I was on hold for a few minutes. The customer service rep was helpful but did pressures me to lock myself into a subscription which I declined).

I chose to try out the Essentials Sample Pack - a mix of personal care and cleaning items. Included in the pack are: Honest Lavender Liquid Hand Soap (2oz),  Honest White Grapefruit Multi Surface Cleaner (1oz),  Honest Organic Healing Balm (this is a Vaseline type ointment that is made from fruit and flower oils), Honest Shampoo+ Body Wash in Sweet Orange Vanilla fragrance and Honest Face+ Body Lotion (all .75oz).

I found that the products were all good but nothing was outstanding. 

The scented products all smell great, I especially liked the fragrance of the white grapefruit spray cleaner, it was clean and fresh without being astringent. The product packaging was attractive and functional. 

Whilst I can see the appeal of this sort of subscription if you are a busy Mum with a large house to clean I'm not sure that a couple or a single person in an apartment would use enough cleaning products to warrant it. The cost per item in the monthly bundle works out at $7.00 an item and although they are good quality products I think that this is on the high side. I can find similar items on my high street or in the supermarket or Target for much less.

 I won't be committing to a subscription but I may consider purchasing individual products if I see them in my local stores (especially if they are on offer) now that I have tried them out, but having said that I'm a huge fan of Mrs Myers products and we use Dr Bronner's Soap for a lot of our cleaning needs. 

Whilst I admire the company's charitable side - you can read about it on line - I would rather that they donated and helped non profits without being so vocal about it, I find that a much more gracious approach. Also of course it's preferable to use green/sustainable/organic products but there's a lot of  wasteful packaging used when products are shipped directly to consumers and if you want to lead a truly green lifestyle there's always soap, water and vinegars to clean with...