Tirtyl

Great question! Our laundry sheets are currently made in China. While we have tried to source a local manufacturer in Australia, we simply can't find a supplier with the appropriate infrastructure. We also tried to find manufacturers in the United States, as this is a growing market for us, also to no avail.

The sheets are made using a process similar to that used to make paper: a paste is made, then spread evenly and dried before being cut into sheets. Our supplier captures and reuses evaporated water from this process and uses mixed energy, primarily renewable hydroelectricity, to power the process.

The advantage of our sheets compared to supermarket varieties is they are significantly lighter and more compact per serve. This is because they don’t contain water or fillers, which reduces the carbon from transporting goods. Our sheets are also grey water and septic safe, so no nasty are leaving your place either.

This is great question and will give you an insight into how large multinationals try to differentiate commodity products like soap and shampoo. About 5 years ago, one of the the largest personal care conglomerates commenced a campaign against some sulfates in some rinse-off personal care products, despite continuing to use them in their toothpaste. Rather than focusing on what IS in their products, they focused on what IS NOT (including things that were barely ever used in formulas like gluten or alcohol). Many have since followed due to the success of this marketing pivot.

As a result, there is now a negative public perception of many ingredients like sulfates despite most of them being great ingredients. As a result, other brands are removing sulfates rather than trying to educate the public about the benefits of some sulfates. The same could be said for the nuances of using palm oil (very high yield per hectare and performance) versus other oils.

In general, an ingredient like Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) is a safe, effective and affordable surfactant. It can cause minor irritation in high concentrations but we use relatively small amounts and mix it with other ingredients to negate this. We will continue to use SLS is our formulas.

An ingredient we will NOT use is SLES. By itself, SLES is not problematic but it can be contaminated with a substance called 1,4-dioxane, which is known to cause cancer in laboratory animals. This contamination occurs during the manufacturing process.

Despite the public controversy that exists around SLS, our team and others in the scientific community believe it is well-researched and safe for use. Our ingredients list can be found in the link below, and a well referenced & documented study around SLS which describes the controversy found on the following link. Of course, everyone is entitled their opinion on this, I am only sharing our point of view and as advised from our team.

https://tirtyl.com.au/ingredients

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4651417/

Let me know if you have any further queries