Marcal Small Steps Product Review & Giveaway

I was very excited when I was contacted by Marcal to review a few of their Small Steps products.  As you know we have been taking many steps over the past couple of years to live a more green lifestyle in our house.  I think it is very important for all of us to take small steps each day to help our environment. I also think it is even more important to teach each new thing we've learned about saving our planet to our children, as they (along with their own children) will be here much longer than you or I. 

So when I received a big box in the mail, my kids were ecstatic and couldn't wait to see what was in it.  When I openned it and all they saw were paper towels, tissues, toilet paper and napkins their excitement quickly dwindled.  I think they were secretly hoping for some toys!  So as they were sitting with me, we emptied out the box together and I explained a few things to them about these "special" paper products:

• All of the items were made from 100% recycled paper content (since they come with me to drop off our recycling each week at our transfer station, they thought it was pretty cool that these could have been made from some of the paper we dropped off to recycle)
• No new trees were cut down to make these
• There was no chlorine bleach used for whitening (they didn't know what chlorine bleach was since it hasn't been in our house in over 2 years)
• There were no added fragrances or dyes (they liked this too because my son gets frustrated with me at the store all the time when he wants some "cool" shampoo or lotion and I tell him he can't get it because there is fragrance or too many chemicals in it)
• Marcal has been recycling since 1950 which has resulted in millions of trees being saved
• And that if every home in America switched to any Marcal Small Steps product just once this week, then together over 1 million trees could be saved

As much as we have been working on being a more green family, I can honestly say that we do not regularly purchase recycled paper products.  This is for a few reasons; (1) the few we've tried I wasn't that impressed with because they were very rough (not soft to touch at all) and very thin (so not absorbent) and (2) we've switched to reusable cloth versions to replace some of our disposble products (ie: napkins and paper towels).  I would love to find a recycled product though that I am happy to purchase where we do not use a cloth alternative (or as a backup for our cloth alternative). 

So how did we like the Marcal Small Steps products in our house? 
Overall, I liked all of the products - here is a rundown of each product we tried and tested:

Napkins - we received a sample of standard napkins and a sample of dinner napkins. Let me just tell you my husband was thrilled to have disposable napkins in the house!!! We usually just use cloth napkins at our house, so this was a real treat. Since we were leaving for vacation a week after I received the napkins, I saved them to bring along with us. As much as we use cloth for most things at home, when I'm on vacation, I'm all about making things easy for me - and not having to wash cloth napkins for a week was a treat for me! The napkins worked great - they were thick enough to clean off some of the messiest kid fingers we had during vacation (ie: smores, ice cream, pb&j sandwiches - need I say more?) And the dinner napkins were more formal and looked nice on a table set for dinner!

Paper Towels - the paper towels worked very well!  They were very absorbent and comparable to any other brand of paper towels that I have used.  Their paper towels come in two different styles: standard and the "u-size-it".  I also saved our paper towels for vacation (we use mostly cloth paper towels in our house, but I always keep a roll on hand for those unusual messes that I just want in the garbage a.s.a.p.).  So I felt that I was able to do a more thorough review of them while using them on vacation - they worked great at keeping the kitchen clean in the rental house! With a house full of 7 adults and 3 kids I can't even begin to explain some of the cleanups we had!

Toilet Paper - everyone in the house liked the toilet paper. I was actually surprised at how soft it was because other recycled toilet papers we've tried felt more rough and like a sheet of paper to the touch.  My daughter loved how their where hearts on the toilet paper!  To a toddler, that was the most impressive and important thing about them!!!   

Tissues - the tissues have also worked well for all of our runny noses.  I had a cold (maybe allergies) for a few days so was using them then.  And of course whenever one of my kids is crying about something, they always need a tissue afterwards to wipe their tears and blow their nose!  The only complaint I had about the tissues were that they were not super soft.  So if you have a really bad head cold (like I often get in the winter) and end up having to blow your nose non-stop all day (and night), I can definitely see these tissues leaving my nose red and hurting.  I think that having them in the house for daily use is great - why buy tissues that are not made from 100% recycled materials.
Overall, I also liked how all of the products were not that light brown/beige color like most other recycled paper products are.  I know it's not that big of a deal, but these recycled paper products just looked "cleaner" because of their more white color.  After having tried these products, I must say that I will definitely be making a more conscious effort to buy these going forward.  Especially with their budget friendly prices compared to other recycled products, why wouldn't I? 

So are you interested yet in trying some Marcal Small Steps products in your own home?  Marcal was generous enough to offer one lucky reader 3 coupons for a Marcal product up to $5.99!

So if you are interested in trying out 3 different Marcal Small Steps products, you must be a public follower of 3 Little Ones blog and also let me know which product is the one you would like to try the most.

If you would like some extra entries, here they are:

• Follow Marcal Small Steps on Twitter
• Like Marcal Small Steps on Facebook
• Follow 3 Little Ones blog on Twitter @3littleonesblog
• Like 3 Little Ones blog on Facebook
• Blog about this giveaway (5 extra entries) - please leave link to post
• Post this giveaway on your facebook wall (3 extra entries) - please leave link to post
• Tell me one thing you have done to lead a more green lifestyle
• Add the 3 Little Ones blog button to your blog (make sure to leave me a link to where you left my button)
• Tweet about this giveaway - make sure to use #3littleonesblog and #marcalsmallstep in your tweet (up to 3x per day - 1 extra entry per tweet) - please leave link to tweet

Giveaway is open to US only. You must be 18 years or older to enter.  Giveaway starts on August 27, 2010 and ends at 9 p.m. EST on September 15th.  Winner will be selected using random.org and will be posted on blog and contacted via email.  The winner will have 48 hours to respond or another winner will be selected. 

Good Luck!

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