The Loofah Difference
Our New Zealand grown loofah are of the Egyptian variety which is known world wide for their softness, this is because of a looser fibre weave (like the shower puff) that has excellent strength allowing it to be more flexible. They are soft enough to use on the whole body for a mild to medium exfoliation but strong enough to scrub kids dirty knees. As they are 100% plant based they can be composted at home.
The Loofah Patch loofah (luffa) are an eco-friendly alternative to the plastic shower puff...
Did you know that one standard sized shower puff (also known as bath pouf) is made up of 3.5 metres of plastic netting?
Plastic use is a hot topic right now so we tested to see just how much plastic a shower puff is really made up of and what effect they have on the environment - I was astounded at just how much netting is wound up in such a small bundle of fluffiness. There is 3.5 metres of plastic netting wound up in a standard size puff which consists of nylon (synthetic polymer) or ldpe (low density polyethylene) and once the thin string breaks the impact becomes huge. If they make it to the ocean, well we all know the damage that this amount of mesh netting can cause to our marine and bird life. There are some shower puffs made from recycled plastic, this goes a little way to helping deal with the plastic use problem but at the end of the day it's still a plastic product.
The other variety of natural loofah:
The other kind of natural loofah that you often find at the Chemist next to the pumice or sold on wooden handles are Asian loofah, they have a tighter fibre weave making them much harder and more pumice like. They are bleached to make them whiter, which causes them to become harder and brittle. If you like a heavy exfoliation then those type of loofah are for you.
The advantage of buying New Zealand grown loofah:
Our loofah are 100% pure and natural - we only use water in our cleaning processes and there is no need for us to bleach or fumigate.
- We say no to bleaching because this degrades the loofah fibres and therefore the loofah doesn't last as long.
- Because we don't import we don't need to fumigate and blast our loofah with chemicals (formaldehyde is most commonly used) - imported loofah need to go through this process to be allowed into New Zealand as they are a plant based product.
