over and out

Poor omop... and another method product bites the dust. Read the announcement here.

return trip

Looks like method's tub + tile cleaner has made it's return to Target store shelves! The product had been clearanced from Target a couple months ago to make room for the new bathroom antibac cleaner; but quite a few advocates were missing their tub + tile eucalyptus mint fix! So it appears method (and/or Target) listened!

My only concern at the moment is the price ($4.49) as I can't remember if that's a new higher price point, or the same as the product previously carried. Right now it's more expensive than the rest of the bathroom line (lil' bowl blu and le scrub.) But I'd look for Target to give it a price cut before too long. Most of the time that's how things seem to work with Target. But for the moment, let's just celebrate tub + tiles return!

inside the studio: method products

Check out this great article giving us all a peek into the method offices, and how they work!

Inside The Studio: method Products - the dieline

Our first glimpse inside the walls of Method Products proved to be somewhat of a surprise. Method’s close proximity to the city’s financial center gave us the impression we were about to walk into a rigid and sterile office space. Those feelings were soon expelled, as we entered a space that was casual and full of quirky touches. We met with Josh Handy and Sally Clarke, VP of Industrial Design and Design Director of Packaging, respectively. Both native New Zealanders, their accents came through as we touched on everything from their careers at Method, creative processes, and of course – working together as a married couple.

How did you get involved at Method?

Josh Handy: “I met Adam and Eric, the two founders, when I was working in New York at Karim Rashid Studio. This was back in 2000-2001 and they sat down across the table for Karim and me and said, ‘we want to change the world of cleaning. We want you to design a dish soap for us, and we want it to be the most revolutionary dish soap every created.’

We thought, this sounds all right. ‘How much money do you have?’

‘Uh, none.’

‘So what sort of distribution do you have?’

‘None’

Karim and I were kind of like, ‘uh-huh uh-huh, yeah see you later’

He and I had a chat afterwards and we thought; we’ll spend three days on it. We will try to get some shares off them -because at the time it was the dot.com boom, everyone was going for equity and talking start ups. We thought, what the hell, we’ll take a punt on it. We worked on it and we came up with the idea for the upside down dish soap. They took that design and took it to Target and Target said ‘We love it, let’s do it but you have to be on the shelves in 16 weeks.’”

Oh my gosh…

“They had to be there on the shelves in 16 weeks, so it was crazy trying to get the formula done. The bottle needed to be sourced, manufactured, tested, and all of that stuff. It was a nightmare and it turned out to be a bit of a disaster, because the bottles started to leak. And they were all on the top shelf. There are great Method legends of people going around and wiping down Target stores, getting all the soap off the leaky bottles! [Laughs] That kind of set the brand off.”

[After a brief move to Australia Josh had a chance encounter with one of Method’s founders]

“I bumped into Eric at a trade show in Chicago while I was there for my Australian job and we got to talking. He was like ‘You should come work for me.’ This is the short story, there’s a much longer story which is kind of fun. [Laughs] So we kind of made that happen.

So about 4 and a half, almost 5 years ago, we turned up here in San Francisco to work for Method. There were like 35 people. Its been a bit of a ride ever since..."

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Check out the full article over on the dieline!

clean sweeps

UPDATED

+ Be sure to check out your newspaper this Sunday, as method has a nice and nifty $1. off coupon for their new anti-bacterial cleaning line inside!

+ method lust reader Jason let us know he's recently found all-surface cleaning spray in lavender and pink grapefruit, at his local Big Lots! For a mere $1.50! Other readers have also found squeaky green laundry detergent (64 load bottle!) in sweet water and free + clear for $5.00; and almond flower creamy body wash for $3.00! So head on out this weekend and see if your Big Lots has some new method goodies! And let method lust know what you find!

HOLIDAY UPDATEI took a stroll into Target today, and discovered some of the "competition" aircare lines are hitting shelves now. method's holiday hand wash line hasn't shown up yet (it should hit early-November) but the Glade line is out in around five scents, including candles and aroma spray. I gotta say though, I think Glade is pretty much bottom of the barrel when it comes to quality (and it's definitely not green) so I'd have to take a pass on their holiday line. But they do have a peppermint crush candle that smells a lot like method's peppermint vanilla scent.

Febreze also has a holiday line of candles and spray out, including cranberries and frost, which reminds me of method's frosted cranberry scent. And finally, Target has gotten in two of Mrs. Meyer's candles from their holiday line (orange clove and Iowa pine.) Now they have four in the line, as well as dish soap, spray cleaner and hand wash. So I'm not sure if Target will be getting the remainder in later, or if this is all we get. - Which would be a huge disappointment. Except, the candles are already a disappointment (as far as I'm concerned.) They're tiny, I'm talking 4.9 oz. tiny! method's candle line was 6.5 oz at $7.99, and people complained about that price. Mrs. Meyer's holiday candles are 4.9 for $6.99! Once you see them, you might understand. I simply can't justify the price, so I won't be buying these. And the orange clove scent, totally not what I was hoping for. A couple years ago Old Navy put out an amazing orange clove candle that smelled 200% better than the Mrs. Meyer's candle. So I'll be passing on these as well.

I'm curious what everyone else thinks once they've had a chance to check out these lines, so drop method lust a comment or email! Here's to wishing yet again, method would give us our great holiday line back! Cause the other brands don't seem to be cutting it.

holiday preview

While it's not going to be available at your local Target until early November, take a peek at what you can already find (and buy) at drugstore.com! method's holiday 2010 line of hand washes in hollyberry, cinnamon bark, and peppermint vanilla! Unfortunately that looks like all we'll be getting, as method pretty much slashed their holiday line last year (remember all those wonderful dish soaps, spray cleaners, candles and aroma sprays, as well as new scents each year... mmm!)

...which brings us to something interesting. Seems Mrs. Meyers has taken notice of the fact that a substantial holiday line is missing from the green cleaning products category once more, and started bulking up their own! This year brings us spray cleaner, dish soap, hand wash and a candle in orange clove! And you can also pick up last years Iowa pine, as well as new cranberry and snicker doodle scents - all in candles!

So while it's unfortunate method has decided to roll up their holiday line (and give us the same scents as last year) we can at least look forward to some great new environmentally friendly holiday products and scents from Mrs. Meyers this year! They'll probably hit stores at about the same time as method's holiday hand wash line. (But you can already purchase Mrs. Meyers online, as well!)

clean sweeps

+ A wonderful method luster let me know they've just found method's creamy moisturizing hand wash line (olive leaf, white tea, and almond flower) as well as some gel hand washes in sweet water and green tea + aloe, at their local Big Lots! The creamy hand wash is $2.00, while the gel hand wash is $1.50. Snatch some up!

+ Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart to the wonderful readers that donated to method lust's registration renewal request! You all rawk! And we've already hit our goal! So yay! A big ole' wet kiss from me, to you!

one man review - kitchen hand wash

Well, golly! Look what's back! It's method lust one man reviews! method has recently put out a whole bunch o'new products, so I've decided to hop down off my lazy bum and review them for you! It's awfully nice of me to do this, now isn't it? Yes, yes, it is! Well thank you, accolades are always so appreciated, even if they are fictitious and imaginary (which pretty much mean the same thing, but whatever, ok? I'm trying to get a point across! Or something like that. Actually, I'm not even sure what I'm attempting to do at this juncture, except to use biggish type words like juncture and fictitious. But I sound pretty smart, right? So I guess that's what I'm trying to do here, sound smart! Which has nothing to do with method product reviews, does it? Well, unless I was reviewing method smarty dish cubes. But I'm not, so alas, so far this has all been for nil. See, see, I did it again. Another smartish word! Go, me!)


With that out of the way, let's get going! Today's review: method's new kitchen hand wash line! method decided that onions and fish and garlic and hmm, vinegar, and I'm not sure what else but you know there are a lot of things out there in your kitchen, were stinky. Bah. And some of those things, well, they don't come off your hands very well if you just use your usual hand wash! Oh sure, they have those little stainless steel bars of "soap" you can use that are supposed to remove nasty scents from your hands, but do they really work? I mean, if that were true, why couldn't I just save my money and rub a butter knife on my hands? I mean, it's made out of stainless steel too, don't you know! Not that I've ever tried this, mind you, cause that would just be silly, ok? Right, right. But method decided to just do one better, and come up with a kitchen hand wash that would remove those icky scents, nice and easy - with no metal involved whatsoever. (Is whatsoever one word, or three? I'll get back to that later...)

And I gotta say, they've done it! The hand wash line comes in lemongrass and basil scents, and it actually works for me! Now, you still have to do some scrubby scubbing to make sure you get it all washed off, but hey, that's no problem. I've definitely noticed a difference when using the kitchen hand wash compared to their normal hand wash line. It does a great job of taking away those yucky smells! Goodbye, garlic! Hasta la vista, vinegar! Take a hike, tuna! Outta here, onion! (Ya getting the point yet, I can keep doing this, and you know you don't want me to.)

Now the scents! Honestly, they're both great! The basil really does smell like a true basil. Now, I think it smells more like a Thai basil, which has more of an anise/licorice scent to it than regular sweet basil. Some advocates seem to like the licorice scent, some don't. (I think it's sorta great for fall/Halloween, myself! - So it's perfect for right now!)

The lemongrass, well, it's, in my humble opinion, Heaven! Now, as I've mentioned in the past, method had a lemongrass scented hand wash way back when. I'm not even sure if it lasted a year, and many method officials don't even remember it's existence! But I've still got a bottle to prove it! It was, and still is one of my favorite all-time method scents! And of course it didn't last (cause that's what always happens to me!) So when I heard about this new lemongrass hand wash, I prayed to every God I knew of that they would just resurrect their old scent and make me happy (cause really, shouldn't that be method's #1 priority, to make me happy? Hmm... well, we'll get back to that as well.) And when I got the hand wash, well, it wasn't the original scent. And at first, honestly, I was disappointed. The original scent was more grass than lemon. This new one appears to be more lemon than grass. But over time, I can now say I am addicted to their new lemongrass scent! I love, love, love it. In fact, I would method marry it, if I could! It is just amazing! And you get 18 oz. instead of the usual 12 oz. with their other hand washes, for a mere extra dollar! What's not to love?

So I'm giving the new kitchen hand wash a big ole' 4.5 out of 5 (whoa, dude, whoa!), cause it's that great! I hope it sticks around! And you can even matchy-matchy up the basil with method's new basil dish soap (currently available on their methodhome.com store!) Here's hoping method catches a clue, and also puts out a lemongrass dish soap soon! Cause honestly, who in the world chose basil over lemongrass here?! Lemongrass rocks, and should be in dish soap, spray cleaner, and every thing else, yo! Who's with me, aight? Aight!

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Have you given the new lemongrass and basil kitchen hand washes a try? What were your thoughts? Add your reviews to the comments! And check back soon for more one man reviews!

method fun!