If you're reading this, you've probably also made the move to reduce plastic waste by switching from liquid detergent to laundry detergent sheets. Or maybe you're here because you want to make the move, but aren't quite sure which brand offers the best laundry detergent sheets for you.
I've been there before. With so many different eco-friendly laundry detergent sheets on the market, it's hard to know where to even start. That's why I decided to make a list of the qualities that matter most to me and then ordered some of the top brands on the market to test how they performed. Now, I'm writing a series of in-depth reviews and comparisons so that you can more easily discover which brand is right for you.
In this Tru Earth vs. Earth Breeze comparison, I outline some of the main similarities and differences between the two popular products, which brand ranked higher on my scale, and then offer my thoughts on why HeySunday's laundry sheets still work best for me and my family. At the end of the day, I think the important thing is that you're making the switch to eco-friendly alternatives!
Highlights
- Best Scent: Tru Earth. Though both brands offered a fresh scent option with a subtle but pleasing aroma, Tru Earth's scents lasted longer, and they have a wider variety of options than Earth Breeze.
- More Affordable: Earth Breeze. For slightly more than half the price of Tru Earth, Earth Breeze offers similar effectiveness and commitment to community outreach.
Comparing Earth Breeze vs. Tru Earth
Here’s a quick look at the overall similarities and differences of the two brands.
Are Laundry Detergent Sheets Toxic to the Environment?
Unlike laundry detergent pods that don't fully dissolve in the washing machine and have harsh ingredients, laundry detergent sheets have concentrated formulas designed foremost with sustainability and gentleness in mind. Tru Earth and Earth Breeze laundry sheets are no exception.
Both Tru Earth and Earth Breeze sheets are non-toxic, dissolve completely in water, and use no harmful chemicals or dyes.
Tru Earth Overview
Invented in British Columbia, Canada in 2019 by three friends determined to reduce plastic pollution through zero-waste packaging, Tru Earth was founded on the principle of simplicity empowered integrity.
Key Features
Tru Earth products are eco-friendly alternatives to liquid detergents without the plastic jugs or harsh chemicals. The Eco-Strips are soft, foamy sheets of condensed laundry detergent that dissolve in both hot or cold water. Formulated for sensitive skin, Tru Earth Eco-Strips are hypoallergenic, dermatologist tested, and work in all washing machines.
Tru Earth stands out among laundry detergent sheet brands for their community outreach. For every $25 spent, which is at least what you would spend on a 63-load pack of Tru Earth sheets, they will provide one person with laundry detergent sheets for an entire month.
Pros
- Zero-waste brand packaging
- Dissolves completely in both hot and cold water
- Hypoallergenic
- Offers a variety of subtle scents
- Travel-friendly
- Pre-measured perforated strips
- Flexible subscription options
Cons
- Regular formula didn’t stand up to tough stains
- Heavy duty formula is even more expensive
- May breakdown in humidity
- Markedly more expensive than other brands
- Free shipping only for subscribers
Customer Reviews
Tru Earth's customer reviews are largely positive. A lot of people report feeling happy knowing that they are making a positive impact on the environment. However, more than a few reviews mentioned dirt remaining on their clothes, or not feeling like their clothes were truly cleaned even after using two sheets. Residue and quality customer service seemed to be another issue for some, although that was not my experience.
Bottom Line
Tru Earth stands out as an eco-friendly laundry detergent brand. Tru Earth Eco-Strips arrive at your door in 100% plastic-free packaging, their formula is non-toxic, and the laundry detergent sheets work all right.
However, Tru Earth seems needlessly expensive compared to other detergent sheets on the market, and their Platinum formula, designed to clean heavily soiled laundry, is even more costly.
Earth Breeze Overview
On a mission to make high-quality, low-waste products, Earth Breeze was founded in 2019 with headquarters in Oregon. To reduce the plastic waste left over by traditional laundry detergents, Earth Breeze manufactures eco-friendly laundry sheets held in plastic-free packaging.
Key Features
Similar to Tru Earth, Earth Breeze Eco Sheets are spongy sheets of concentrated laundry soap that dissolve in both hot or cold water to offer the same dissolubility of liquid laundry detergent without wasting water or bulky plastic packaging. Like most laundry sheets, they feature an eco-friendly formula without the toxic chemicals of many traditional liquid detergents.
To further their mission to reduce, regenerate, and redistribute, for every one pack of laundry detergent sheets that you purchase, Earth Breeze partners with 800+ organizations to donate 10 loads of laundry to one person in need. Earth breeze's entire supply chain is also carbon neutral.
Pros
- Compostable packaging
- Vegan and animal-friendly formula without harsh chemicals
- Dissolves completely, even in cold water
- Hypoallergenic and gentle on skin
- Travel-friendly
- Flexible subscription options and free shipping
- Very affordable
Cons
- Paper package is delivered wrapped in plastic (purchased from Amazon)
- Packaging is easily breakable
- Not as tough on harsh stains
- Strips are not pre-cut
- You may need to use more to get the clean you want
- For someone looking for scent, they may feel disappointed
Customer Reviews
Firstly, there are a lot of positive reviews for Earth Breeze, which shows that they are doing a lot right. Their flexible subscription options is one thing a lot of people were happy with, and they perform pretty well on average loads of laundry. I was surprised by a lot of recent reviews mentioning sticky residue on their clothes and laundry drum since I found that they dissolved perfectly for me.
I also noticed a lot of reviews are similar to my own experience in two ways. One, although clothes smell clean after a wash, there isn’t a distinct laundry smell that a lot of people look for in a detergent. Two, there were more than a few reports that people felt the need to use more than one strip, even for medium-sized loads, so the “60-load” measurement felt inaccurate.
Bottom Line
As an eco-friendly laundry detergent, Earth Breeze is a strong contender. Despite the plastic cover used in transportation (likely because I purchased through Amazon rather than their website), Earth Breeze uses minimal, biodegradable packaging, and their cruelty-free laundry detergent is formulated for sensitive skin using all vegan ingredients. With flexible subscription options and free shipping, they are also very competitively priced.
However, to stay within their price per load number, you will have to separate each non-perforated sheet yourself. Following that recommended amount is somewhat frustrating, and considering their weaker cleaning power, you may end up not wanting to divide the sheets at all.
Who Wins? Earth Breeze vs. Tru Earth
In this laundry head-to-head, I evaluated each brand in terms of their cleaning performance, environmental friendliness, price, formulas, and missions.
Cleaning Power
- Tru Earth: 3/5 stars
- Earth Breeze: 3.5/5 stars
I tested them both on delicate washes and heavy-duty loads and found that hot or cold water, both laundry detergent sheets worked decently well on an average load of laundry. After a wash cycle, my clothes felt soft, bright, and had that slight aroma of freshness with both Tru Earth and Earth Breeze laundry detergent. For cleaning products, though, I wish they’d both performed a bit better.
To test how each laundry detergent does with heavy stains, I used them on napkins covered in the stains most common for my family—tomato sauce, olive oil, and wine. Both Tru Earth and Earth Breeze laundry sheets cleared up the tomato sauce. While neither was able to take out the oil and wine, the napkins washed by Earth Breeze looked slightly cleaner.
Although Earth Breeze rated higher on cleaning power for me, Tru Earth does also offer a heavy-duty formula for a slightly higher price that I'm sure would have performed better.
Environmental Impact
- Tru Earth: 4.5/5 stars
- Earth Breeze: 4/5 stars
In comparison to laundry detergent pods or liquid laundry detergent, both Earth Breeze and Tru Earth are environmentally conscious brands. You would be making a positive difference simply by ditching traditional laundry detergents for either of these brands.
That said, there are some differences between the two. While both brands use biodegradable paper packaging, Earth Breeze advertises that they are carbon neutral and Tru Earth does not. Although Tru Earth's zero-waste packaging does reduce their carbon footprint. On the other hand, Earth Breeze was delivered to my door wrapped in plastic, which was likely due to my ordering from Amazon, but still less than ideal.
In the end I felt that Tru Earth rated higher in terms of eco-friendliness.
Cost-Effectiveness
- Tru Earth: 2.5/5 stars
- Earth Breeze: 4.5/5 stars
This one is pretty straightforward, since Tru Earth comes out to twice the price of Earth Breeze! Still, there are some nuances that I want to highlight. First, I appreciate that both Earth Breeze and Tru Earth offer flexible subscription options and discounts for subscribers. On the other hand, while Earth Breeze offers free shipping for all orders, Tru Earth only offers free shipping for subscribers.
And while Earth Breeze laundry detergent sheets are significantly less expensive than Tru Earth detergent sheets, with either product you may end up needing to use more sheets overall and spending more than expected to get the clean you want.
Ingredients and Formulas
- Tru Earth: 4/5 stars
- Earth Breeze: 5/5 stars
Seeing as both brands were extremely gentle, I thought I would talk a little bit about the differences in their formulas and ingredients. We loved that both are hypoallergenic, dermatologist tested, vegan, and cruelty-free. They’re also free of harsh chemicals like 1,4-dioxane, bleaches, and dyes.
Both formulas are relatively similar and use a closely related type of surfactant (sodium laurel sulfate), an ingredient often found in cleaning products that have received a lot of negative attention. I was also curious, so I did my own research and found that those claims actually contradict the scientific evidence. Although it may have harmful effects in large, raw forms, sodium laurel sulfate is rapidly biodegradable and harmless in the quantities found in household products.
However, for the sake of directly comparing the brands I will say that although Tru Earth offers a wider variety of formulas—varying scents or potency levels—their sheets did appear to breakdown in the summer humidity. I noticed that after a few days, the sheets became slightly sticky to the touch, clumped together, and formed large bubbles that made me concerned that some of the soap was evaporating. I have never seen this effect in other brands. For that reason, I am also going to rate Earth Breeze higher in terms of formula.
Brand Initiatives
- Tru Earth: 5/5 stars
- Earth Breeze: 4/5 stars
Both Tru Earth and Earth Breeze demonstrate that they are committed to giving back to the earth and their community. I believe that there is a lot that both of these companies are doing that would be difficult to measure through the kind of individual research that I am doing, so I want to disclose that I am not a perfect resource to measure their impact.
With that in mind, their commitment to giving back is a large draw of using Earth Breeze laundry sheets; however, if you read my more in-depth Earth Breeze review you may remember that Earth Breeze measures one load as half a sheet, so when they say, "Buy One Give Ten," what they might really mean is that for every pack that you purchase, they are giving only five sheets to someone in need. While I love the community engagement, does it feel a bit like bare minimum? Yes. If you're going to point to it as a key differentiator, I'd like to see more weight behind it.
As Tru Earth states that they provide someone with detergent for an entire month for every $25 spent on their products, I am going to rate them higher on brand initiatives. But again, this is my personal opinion and I am not qualified to speak with authority on the matter.
Can You Get a Better Clean Elsewhere?
I did! Although Earth Breeze marginally outperformed Tru Earth on my scale, after weeks of research, time spent using both of these eco-friendly laundry detergents, and testing out Clean People as well, I wasn't convinced to switch from the brand that my family currently uses and trusts—HeySunday.
Like the other two brands, HeySunday features a plant-based formula without toxic ingredients and plastic-free packaging. Not only are their sheets around the same price per load as Earth Breeze, that price is actually measured by what you need to get a load clean, so you know you will always be paying exactly the amount advertised. Additionally, they offer heavy-duty performance in their regular formula (the best of all the brands I tried), so you don't have to look elsewhere for cleaning power.
In terms of ingredients and convenience, HeySunday is gentle on my sensitive skin, and comes in similar lightweight, biodegradable packaging that is super convenient for traveling. That’s the conclusion that me and my family came to, but I hope that the information that I've provided can help you make the choice that feels right for you and your needs.
Tru Earth vs. Earth Breeze Final Thoughts
Once again, based on the scale that I created to measure how these brands performed against the qualities that I value in a laundry detergent sheet, Earth Breeze came out on top of Tru Breeze.
Still, in my opinion, the most important thing is finding an eco-friendly laundry detergent that you can trust, that improves your quality of life, while also doing their part to preserve the life on this planet that is precious to us. Good luck on your laundry journey, and don't forget to look for joy in the little things.
