Start chatting with Lisa Peri, CEO of Lucky Earth waterless car wash, and you may hang out talking about water, pollution, and the urban environment for a chunk of time. I found that out when I ran into Lisa at AltCarExpo — to suddenly discover myself deep in a conversation about gallons-of-water savings comparisons for different car-cleansing methods….

Luckily, I never have to spend my time or money washing cars — yay! And also luckily, Lucky Earth makes a waterless bike wash too!

Okay — So the only actual difference between the Lucky Earth car and bike wash is the packaging. Still, that means both products not only save a lot of water, but are phosphate, fragrance, dye, and paraben free to boot.

I tried out Lucky Earth Bike Wash right after my neighbor Adam determined he couldn’t figure out how to fix my bike’s flat tire. To be honest, I pretty much never clean my bike — I rarely washed my car when I had it either — so while I thought Lucky Earth did the job quite well, I had nothing to compare its performance against. But in Adam’s more experienced opinion, Lucky Earth was okay, but didn’t work as quickly as his usual cleaning product, Simple Green All-Purpose Cleaner.

I looked into Simple Green All-Purpose Cleaner to find out what the difference was. While both Simple Green and Lucky Earth cleaners are non-toxic, biodegradable, and free of parabens, Simple Green contains 0.5% phosphates while Lucky Earth does not. Simple Green also contains a synthetic sassafras fragrance and a green colorant. Those two ingredients, as far as I can tell, are relatively safe, though those with known allergies and other sensitivities may want to avoid them.

If I can get into a regular bike-cleaning routine, I’ll go with Lucky Earth. As Alison Sherbach notes in Plenty, “you can use it on every single surface in your car, such as paint, glass, plastic, or chrome!” — and that goes for all parts of the bike too!

For Angelenos, choosing Lucky Earth means supporting a local business, since Lisa lives in Mar Vista. And in a cute eco-biz collaboration of sorts, Lucky Earth is sold at the Culver City-based Livingreen eco-store, which gets its totebags made by another Culver City company called June Fifteen, whose bags Lisa was giving away as freebies to those buying Lucky Earth at AltCarExpo. All 3 companies, BTW, are founded and run by women!

In addition to Livingreen, Lucky Earth products can be found in Whole Foods and other retail stores, as well as online.

Lucky Earth. 310.215.3133.

[crossposted on BlogHer]

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